We boarded a bus bright and early on day 34, headed towards the Argentinian/Bolivian border. After 4 hours or so, we arrived in dusty La Quiaca, and joined the throngs lined up at the immigration control point. From there, the immigration process itself was so simple and fast that I’m still suspicious whether we did it right or not. After about 1 minute in a queue, the Argentinian side stamped us out, and 5 minutes in another queue gained us our entry stamps in Bolivia. The internet insisted that we needed some kind of form to keep, but the immigration guy wouldn’t give us one and just waved us on. I guess we’ll find out whether we’ve done it right once we try to leave the country…
On the road again... cool looking mountains from our bus window
The number of ladies wearing fancy hats increased exponentially once we crossed the border into the Bolivian town of Villazon, along with the number of dodgy-looking street food stalls, so naturally I immediately felt positively about Bolivia. From there, it wasn’t too much of a mission to track down an ATM that would be friendly towards my eftpos card and drag ourselves along to the train station. We experienced the cheapest (and slowest) 3 hour train ride we had ever taken, entertained the whole way by some weird military-fetishising Chinese film dubbed into Spanish and music videos from Jeremy’s new favourite band (in which the intro of every song featured the lead singer laughing maniacally and every chorus featured synchronised pan-fluting/choreographed dancing). So far, Bolivian folk music was an improvement over its Argentinian relative, as the use of minor keys does not seem to be a foreign concept in Bolivia like it was in Northern Argentina. The sun was beginning to set by the time we rattled into Tupiza, a dusty town with a wild-west feel (for more reasons that the fact that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were gunned down nearby) set to the backdrop of some truly spectacular mountains.
The southern Bolivia landscape as seen through our train window
We rejoiced when we got to our “hostal” (which in Bolivia is not a hostel, but a cheapish hotel) and realised that $32AUD a night can get you a nice private room with ensuite and decent breakfast (the actual presence of proteins instead of just bread with dulce de leche! Rarity on this continent so far!) - contrasted with the fact that we were paying $45-50 a night to stay in dorms in Patagonia. Oh Argentina, you smashed our budget so hard (a situation not helped at all by their crazy inflation rate that we experienced firsthand when a restaurant put up their set meal price by 30 pesos between one day and the next). So to summarise, we spent 33 days in Argentina, and went over the daily budget by 23.3% (not good, I was going to allow for a 10% margin or error…). I’m hoping that we’ll get back on budget Bolivia, although I’m not sure how likely this is as we have a couple of expensive activities in this country (Salt flats and Amazon rainforest). Oh well, YOLO and all that nonsense (well we’ll live for a while yet, hopefully, but we may only Bolivia once, because apparently you get banned from future visits if you stuffed up your entry at the border…).
Not sure if this river than runs through Tupiza is normally this tiny, or if it's because of the water shortages Bolivia was experiencing a couple of months prior to our arrival.
Here are some highlights from Argentina
Favourite place: El Chalten in Patagonia. Having the skin ripped off your face by strong winds while clinging to a steep rock face is probably one of the most fun things I’ve ever done (says a lot about my life and level of masochism, doesn’t it XD)
Favourite accommodation: Apart from our super nice Airbnb, probably Villa Nanin in Tilcara - the owner was really nice, the whole place was small and super chill, and the 6-bed dorm didn’t feel crowded at all (plus, they had a cute cat that refused to leave my lap).
Favourite meal: all the choripan from the Buenos Aires food trucks! Jeremy still cries in his sleep while dreaming about them (they’re just not the same in Bolivia…)
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