Hello all! Today it will be entirely about our 1500km Odyssey from Tupiza to Santa Cruz. As soon as we boarded the bus in Tupiza I knew that this journey will be unforgettable. I got an aisle seat which was already half occupied by a big part of old woman's seating apparatus. After close look I discovered that it's not only due to her fat supply but because she had her square meter sack stuffed under the seat where her feet were supposed to be. Because of that she put her hunks in my precious space and that led to me being seated in an awkward angle of 45 degrees inclining towards the heap of her and my feet sticking out into the aisle. I tried to point out my highly uncomfortable position but all I got was her toothless grin which I interpreted as a smile. By then I should have known where will this situation lead to but overpowered by tiredness I fell asleep and around midnight I woke up on the biggest boob in south-west Bolivia!

I jumped up and started apologising but Mrs Quintal obviously didn't mind waving my apologies away and invitingly patting my latest pillow. At that time I saw there is a large saucepan tucked in overhead luggage storage dangerously close to falling over the edge straight on my head. I stood up and with a flashlight in my mouth I started to scan for some safe location for this heavy blunt lethal weapon. Unfortunately unsuccessfully so i just tucked it as deep into bag compartment as I could and prayed to wake up again. To top things up my large companion decided to chat to another lady on the other side of our bus and blatantly oblivious to my objections they didn't stop until 3.30am. Our bus, that quite likely saw T-Rex roaming the very same flats we were crossing, had a very unique feature. Any time we hit a stone (quite frequent event sue to complete absence of tarmac) a window in front of us opened and meteorologic events like cold and physical phenomenons like clouds of dust settled straight on our faces. Sweet! :))

Anyway, after 13 hours that shook the life out of me we finally arrived to Potosi. This town is well known for mining (a large mountain filled with gold) but we were heading  for Rossio's auntie's house to say hello to her family and then we were off for close (relative term) thermal spa in a town Chaqui. The spa was a heavenly rest and nourishment for our broken bodies, one that we all needed badly and it felt like finding an oasis in the middle of a desert. Unfortunately time was pressing on and before we knew it we were on the road again. This time in a car that was supposed to take us to a town of Sucre some 200km away. But only supposed!!! Only when we closed the door we started to perceive increasing number of anomalies. In the beginning it was the smell of petrol coming from the booth area soon to be joined by squeaking noises made by front wheels anytime we turned, all of this finished by a loving touch of a large crack in the front windshield. However some reassurance was provided by a large sticker of Snoopy Dog on the steering wheel and a roll of arse-wipes on the handbrake. Regrettably neither of these things saved us from inevitable and after 20 minutes we were already climbing up the hill on first gear (according to Mort's erudite opinion we had only two cylinders running) and after 30 minutes we were standstill with our driver trying to hide in the engine area. When he found out he can't fit there and we can still see him he pulled out the phone and called somewhere for help, soon coming back reassuring us somebody is coming soon to take us to our destination. Again "soon" proved to be very relative term but at least it provided us with enough time for a little car inspection. The list of flaws would be too long (looked like someone was trying to figure out what can you take off before the car stops running) so I'll just mention few like smashed headlights (just bulbs remained), no rear view mirror on the driver's side, passenger's door could be opened only from outside, etc. After hour and half another taxi came for us and the rest of our way to Sucre was like a night stage from Colin McRae Rally.

Sucre is constitutional capital of Bolivia (while La Paz is administrative) and after a great night's sleep in that sweet invention called a bed we went out to explore the city. By the evening we got to a bus terminal and our last 15 hours part of this epic journey to Santa Cruz begun. This stage would be a headache for a WRC mechanics because except snow we encountered all types of surfaces. A critical moment came at 1am when we hit a traffic jam in mountainous hairpins with very fine ankle deep dust. You know the dust used in sandglass? Finer!! And in this dust, two bends down the road was an overloaded truck with logs that couldn't move up (and forget about reversing). After hour and half of watching star filled sky (I've never seen so many stars in my life, just amazing - trans. rem.) the rear wheels from one axle of the trailer were taken off and the truck started to slowly climb up the road. Freedom!!! Some more entertainment was provided by two retarded girls (about 15 years old) that were producing horrid screams in random intervals until the morning (no one found out what starts the screams so we couldn't prevent it)...

Anyway! That's all from our bus journeys!! Now it's last two days in sweet Santa Cruz and then our flying carpet will take us to smelly Peruvian capital Lima where we'll stay for two days regaining some strength for our return flight to mother Europe. Have fun and next time for the last time from Lima!
:X

- translated by Mort.