"little people in funny hats"

(...as I´ve heard Bolivia described recently!)

Much as we enjoyed La Paz, it was good to get away from all the irritating gringos there (often British ones) who were doing our heads in. If anything put the nail in the coffin of doing the "Death Road" trip down to Coroico (which, let´s face it, was never really on the cards - adrenaline junkies we are not!) it was having to listen to one particularly infuriating English girl on Skype banging on about how it was "this thing that, like, everyone does" in between anecdotes about "kerr-azee" coked-up nights out in La Paz (with other gringos, obviously - these aren´t the types to interact with the local populace, unless they´re getting robbed by them).




It´s pretty evident that coca plays a pretty major role in Bolivian life (the man standing for governor of La Paz is even called Cocarico, brilliantly enough). Visiting the Coca Museum in La Paz brought that home - although, again, most of the comments left in the visitors´ book by English speakers made us embarrassed for them, and the fact that they clearly hadn´t taken anything in at all about the pernicious effect the West´s appetite for cocaine has had on this country.

Then of course the journey from La Paz to Cochabamba saw us surrounded by locals transporting enormous sacks of coca leaves across the country, and also joined by a coca preacher, delivering a half-hour sermon at full volume about all the benefits derived from the coca leaf (though it did turn out he was trying to flog some product or other). We were both missing Cruz del Sur at this point - in fact it´s fair to say we still are! Anyway, the preacher did omit to mention the effect coca-chewing has on people´s teeth (dire, from what we´re seeing around us every day!), though apparently this is only if you don´t brush your teeth afterwards! Ah...

I had a feeling we would take to Cochabamba, having heard it was friendly and unpretentious, and known for the "warmth and openness of its population", and I was proved right. In fact, it´s been our favourite place in Bolivia so far, hands down. Barely any other tourists, a large and friendly youthful population seemingly hellbent on having a good time, and to top it all, an excellent local bar whose owner was a dead ringer for a Bolivian version of The Wire´s Prop Joe!









From Cocha, we visited Villa Tunari, in the Chapare region, which used to be pretty dangerous as it´s prime coca-growing territory. This is where they grow the stuff they turn into cocaine, so straying off the beaten track around here is still very much inadvisable (pah, Death Road indeed - that´s for wusses), and our jeep got stopped by the local drug police for a routine check. Nothing illicit in the car, though our driver´s reckless style (overtaking on all kinds of blind spots as we sped through the clouds, blaring out ´80s classics like "She´s A Maniac") was hardly reassuring. The Chapare region was like a bizarre flashback to Brazil for us as suddenly we were in the sweltering tropics again. We visited the Inti Wara Yassi project there, which rehabilitates animals before restoring them to the wild, so we hung out with some capuchin and spider monkeys, although sadly the jaguars and pumas were off-limits at the time...

On our last night in Cocha, a table of Cochabambinos (for that is what they´re called - yet another thing we loved) asked us to join them, and we spent the rest of the night talking about President Evo Morales and the recent changes in Bolivian society with them, while downing copious amounts of dodgy-looking shooters. As far as Evo goes, you cannot avoid him in Bolivia - his face even adorns the stamps, for Christ´s sake! He is everywhere... This may have something to do with the municipal elections currently going on (more on that later), although to be fair it hardly seemed like Cochabamba was gripped with election fever, unlike La Paz, for example.

We travelled on to Sucre via another "challenging" overnight bus trip, which involved a hygienically-challenged indigenous woman, with her right breast out, frequently sticking her elbow in my head, or just choosing to sit in the aisle right next to me, rather than in her seat, and conducting a conversation with another passenger right by my ear - attempts to get her to shut the f**k up were limited by the fact she didn´t seem to speak Spanish. The bus broke down before it got to its destination, of course. Believe me, we´ve both found ourselves, and our proudly liberal beliefs, challenged in Bolivia on several occasions, much as it´s given us food for thought.

Sucre itself is, technically, also the capital of Bolivia (along with La Paz), so it basically has ideas above its station for a city of its size - it´s undeniably beautiful and Spanish-looking, with its regularly whitewashed buildings (yep, another place nicknamed "White City", aaarghh is there no escape?) although we´ve unfortunately arrived here the weekend of these sodding elections! So it´s forbidden to buy or consume any alcohol for three whole days beforehand! The obvious loophole being that you could buy as much as you wanted before that and then spend the whole weekend battered... though quite what the alcohol/election issue is in this country (and these aren´t even national elections!!), no one has convincingly explained to us. In fact, no one seems to have questioned it, in particular. And most places (except for the local gringo bar, because they had armed police outside, just to make sure) were a bit crap about the whole thing anyway - after a few exasperated/stern words, we managed to get served a couple of Paceñas to help us wash down our pizza last night.

Anyway the next stop on our adventure will be the town of Uyuni (famously awful) and the legendary salt plains. We´re doing our damnedest to save ourselves from being ripped off and scammed - it seems all the tour operators there are lying chancers - I guess we´ll have to let you know next time if we succeed...!