Tupiza, Bolivia

Well after 4 weeks it was time to leave glamorous Argentina behind and head for the crazy, wild Bolivia! I was a little apprehensive about coming here as there had been some rioting in the country mid September but then I thought to myself... it´s nothing a girl from Belfast cant handle!!

So we left Salta for the 7 hour bus to the border and as we got of the bus to walk though the border controls we were holding on to our bags for dear life, convinced that we were going to be robbed or lured into some scam! But after 5-10mins of walking up the main straight (being the only white skinned people there!) we realised no one was paying the blindest bit of attention to us and we started to relax (a bit!).
A disgustingly hot 3 hour train trip took us to our first Bolivian destination- Tupiza. Lets just say, the look of horror on my face as we pulled into the train station said it all. It was dirty, smelly, windy, noisy and certainly didn´t look like the quaint little backpacker spot that Lonely Planet described it as!!

But we didn´t write it off straight away and that evening we ventured out for a walk and started to come around to place. We even found a semi-decent looking restaurant to eat in, although looks can be deceptive as the food turned out to be pretty rank. Our hostel was however very nice, more of a small hotel with a TV in our room so we had a couple of early nights watching CNN news and films.
The town itself, although very run down and primitive had a lot of character and the people were very friendly. We didn´t do an awful lot here, just explored the place and chilled out. But overall it was an enjoyable few days and a nice introduction to crazy Bolivia!!