Bolivia - 2 days of R.A.K.

The road from Uyuni to Potosi to Tupiza

The rest of the country was getting hit by harder than usual annual rainy season, with a number of deaths in the Cochabamba and Santa Cruz regions.  We had decided that given the choice, we would rather be here in April while the car was being shipped home, and then we could take the intended ferries down in patagonia which only ran until the end of February.  The direct road from Uyuni to Tupiza (the border town with Argentina) was impassable so we were forced to first drive northeast to Potosi, and then down to Tupiza, doubling the distance.

So our time in Bolivia was too short, especially given how quickly we'd fallen for it.  We would compensate our limited interaction with the country and it's people by initiating an intensive programme of Random Acts of Kindness.

RAK 1

As we sped off to Potosi, attempting to shorten LP's indicated 7 hour drive down to 5 hours, we passed a couple of girls hitchhiking on the road.  They couldn't be more than 12 years old and despite our own lack of recent kung fu training, we didn't consider them a threat.  They were also heading to Potosi to shop for food for the family and schoolbooks for themselves, and were waiting for a bus which wasn't scheduled to pass for a few hours yet.  As they got in the car, a very worried young man came up to the window and begged that we take care of them.  He was their older brother and we did our best to assure him they would be just fine.  He was unconvinced so we improvised and

RAK 2

E-J gave him a bag with a bunch of clothes we had identified as unnecessary to the rest of our trip, and not worth sending home.  An old lady then came up to the car.  She was the grandmother and shared her grandson's concern.  Lots of smiles put her nerves somewhat at rest.  A couple of hours down the road and we passed an older, well dressed man looking distressed.  Not quite enough to trigger the RAK threshold we turned the corner and saw the reason for his concern.  The bonnet of his abandoned car had collapsed due to some accident.

RAK 3

We backed up and asked him whether everything was OK.  He said another car had come speeding up the blind corner on the wrong side of the road and that although help was on its way, he would appreciate a hand with the radiator.  The girls in the back got out to watch as MG attached the winch to his radiator and slowly pulled it away from the engine.  He was happy, we were happy.  The girls were happy too, especially when a few km down the road, we cracked open a pack of deluxe chocolate biscuits and E-J insisted they eat some before cookie monster MG devoured them.  Along the way, we asked them questions about their lives and before responding, they would discuss the issue in hushed voices amongst themselves and then the elder girl would act as spokesperson and eloquently present the reply. They explained that their family was 8 people big, and their town was 15 people big.  They went to school up the road, and the elder girl wanted to be a maths teacher when she grew up.  After sugar rush fuelled excessive questioning, MG asked them to ask us questions.  They asked us where we were from and was England far from Bolivia (across the sea?!), and what animals we had in our country.  They were very bright and very cute and we decided that when we got to Potosi,

RAK 4

we would go to the markets with them and buy them all their school stuff and some scientific calculators, which we promptly did on arrival.  They thanked us very much and walked us back to our car.  They wished us a great trip.  It was Sunday and most things were closed, but we had lunch and wandered around taking photos of a beautiful city, which in its heyday was the third largest city in the world.  We went to an ATM to make a withdrawal, the largest 'quick cash' amount equivalent to £20.  As we were leaving town, fireworks were being let off down a valley to our right and we pulled up to have a look and we were told it was the annual Miner's Carnival.  From our viewpoint we could see the entire affair, with its loud brass bands and floats of brightly coloured dancers - everyone looked like they were having a ball.  We drove down as close as the police would allow us, got out our cameras and did our best to penetrate into the crowds.  We didn't get far for the thick of drunk people.  Up close it was clear that despite the music and dancing, people had very little to celebrate.  Their sad, tired eyes stared at ours as if to say "how could you gringos understand our lives?".  The cooperative mines are terrible places to work and between the noxious fumes and explosions miners life expectancy is 10-15 once they start work.  One drunk was getting too friendly with E-J and we decided to move on.

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In Bolivia only 4% of roads are paved.  Kilometre markers appear only every 20km.  An hour or two down the road and we saw a group of guys trying to push-start a pick up.

RAK 5

MG got out to help push and when that didn't work, grabbed the opportunity to use the winch again.  E-J chatted to the little girl.  They jumped on board as the engine kick started and shouted goodbye. 

RAK 6

A little later down the road we picked up an old lady  trying to get to Tupiza. By this point it was dark and we weren't convinced she would find a bus to take her.  She complained of a weak back but didnt say a thing the whole journey. 

It was nightfall before we arrived in Tupiza where it was absolutely pelting it down. We dropped the elderly lady off and followed a bus through huge puddles to the flooded main square.  We found a hotel which did the job and a receptionist who should have got a job outside the service industry.  He insisted we couldn't change our mind over which room to take because he'd already written it down on a piece of paper.  We looked at him and looked at each other and then looked at him again.  Eventually we got the room.

The next morning was a beautiful day.  Tupiza is not far off where the real Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their end, and looking at the landscape one can imagine them holding up small town banks and stealing horses and generally being a pair of a5sholes.  We drove around town and stopped at a stall where a lady was selling fresh fruit.  We bought some sugar sweet tangerines, bananas and grapes and handed over the equivalent of about 30p.  The bananas were imported from Argentina, and yet cost half the price of those we bought in a shop surrounded by banana plantations in Panama.  E-J got chatting with her - her husband had run off with another woman and despite help from her eldest children, she was still struggling to raise her younger ones.

RAK 7

We decided she would make the perfect recipient to one of our now redundant camping chairs (they were top of the line super-light reclining fishing / reading chairs we had lugged down from LA, but were too low to reach our new camping table and so we had bought 2 new slightly higher camping chairs, of course).  She asked us how much and we said it was a present.  E-J demonstrated how it worked and her smile beamed across her face.

Other fruit sellers looked on without jealousy, as if they too had received a gift.  We sadly said goodbye as we had to head south.  We stopped to refuel but were told they were rationing diesel as the re-filling truck had not arrived.  A couple of km out of town and we

RAK 8

gave an old lady a 10 minute ride down the road.  She got out and we stopped outside a field of sunflowers.  MG wanted to take a photo but from the other side of the fence where there was a house and a dog keeping watch from the roof.  MG shouted over and an old man signalled to the gate.  We went in and talked and took photos.  The old man was very kind and while we were on a hell of roll, why wouldn't he make a suitable recipient for the second chair?

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RAK 9

of course he would.  One more hitchhike to a

RAK 10

very large very chatty lady down to the border that E-J had to help squeeze in and out of the car and we were done.  We loved Bolivia and longed to come back the moment we crossed into Argentina.  Until we remembered just how much we loved Argentina.