Never look a gift horse in the mouth- they bite!

Sat 11th-Mon 13th Dec
Saturday we were up early to catch a seven hour bus to Tupiza which is located near the bottom of Bolivia. The bus was again terrible, with no leg space and if you dared put your seat back it pushed forward so you had even less room to move. There was no air con and it was so hot. We had a chocolate bar which was liquefied in no time. No toilet on this bus either! They didn’t even pretend there was one on board which was nice.

We made it to Tupiza, sweaty and hot and bothered, and went looking for our hostel. Tupiza is an extremely small town, and we found our hostel within metres from the bus station. We had showers, organised our tour for the next day, and went out for some early dinner, so well thought. It took us two hours to actually find a restruant that was bothered to serve food, nothing opened till seven- Bolivian time, which means Bolivians proudly have no sense of time at all and get around to doing appointments, services, things at their leisure. We were starving!! We ate at a cheap diner that had movie stars all over the walls(Hugh Grant-cough) and which played cheesy 80’s music. I was laughing, Pete wasn’t. South America LOVES 80’s music, especially Guns and Roses, Bon Jovi and Phil Collins (Note: Pete does NOT like Phil fucking Collins). It really was amusing, still is. We ate our cold meals, had a little look around and went to bed.

Sunday we had organised a horse ride that took us through the canyons of Tupiza. This would be the first time on a horse for both of us, so we were both excited and apprehensive. We went out in the morning and bought some apples for our horses (hoping for mercy) and met our guide. He spoke very basic English and pretty much got us on our horses straight away. He showed us how to move the horses from left to right and how to sto, then we were off. It was nerve wrecking! We took our time getting out of the town, practising moving the horses and getting out of the way of the occasional car. We then steered the horses off the already beaten track and bam we were in the middle of no where.
It was so quiet!! We went along dirt roads, across vast open spaces and tried trotting the horses a couple of times much to our sheer terror and surprise. Pete was riding great brown horse named Talea, and I had a spotty white one called Charbo, which I found out liked to bite the other horses when they got too close. Not good when I was trying to trot past Talea and he would go in for a nibble. On our journey we saw formations called Valia de Machos (don’t check the spelling), which are the thinnest long rock formations in Boliva, and looked like penises. The sheer size of the canyons took our breath away. After passing through a natural rock formation that resembled a doorway, our first stop saw us in the del Dwendy canyon which looked similiar to a Star Trek movie set.

We rode past a canyon wall called Alpeurto Diablo, Devil's mound, which was really impressive.

Then off to our last stop: Canyon del Inca, which was another big bowl of a canyon where we tried to feed our horses apples-no mucho gusto. I went for a big explore and hit my knee on a rock and now have a lovey scrape and bruise.

There were a few hairy moments on the trip when the horses had to go down really steep hills, and when we had to jump a stream which needless to say but I'll say it anyway-freaked me out!
Of horse riding, the horses didn’t really want to listen to us, they only had ears for Simon our guide, and they weren’t too keen on going fast too much either, which suited us just fine. So I'm pleased to write that we haver lived through our first horse riding experience, but our bodies weren’t liking us too much the next day. Talk about sore!! I was expecting the customary arse swelling, but didn't anticipate the: back, elbow, wrist, inner thigh, neck, pain. Pete is still trying to regain feeling in one of his left pointer due to holding on to the metal saddle too tightly we his horse bolted!
We went back to the hostel and had a great shower to get rid of the dirt and dust, then went out to dinner where I had the best lasagne. Gosh it was good.

So that was Tupiza- a tiny town in the middle of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid country, were the canyons climb and the dogs are docile. Where you don’t even need to take a map out with you as it’s impossible to get lost. Ironically, I’m sure if you we were looking for someone out here you probably wouldn’t find them. But if you were counting on it, look no further then the local pub were tall beer is only 15c Australian.

written by

Pete+Rochelle on December 19, 2010 from Tupiza, Bolivia

from the travel blog: Round the world!!!

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The only thing missing from those pictures is a couple of six shooters and some baddies aiming at ya's from the hills. All those spaghetti western memories are flooding back.Hey, horses are a lot further from the ground than they look when you're sitting on one.

written by Ross on December 21, 2010

i like your pictures.thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!come on.

written by saqila on December 21, 2010

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