Day 123 - Our fourth and final mesiversary! And I am definitely ill!

We were up at 5am to catch our bus to Tupiza - a great big thing with no toilet, which means no drinking for a 6 hour journey. The driver tried to pull out at 5:55am and was told off by his local passengers as he was missing some people. The journey was across the badlands, which means flat desert with nothing but llamas for an hour or so, followed by bumpy desert for many more hours. It was actually very isolated and very striking. Now and again someone would get off in the middle of nowhere to search for his flock.

After 2 hours we arrived in a very isolated town called Atocha, which is made up of adobe houses next to a litter-strewn riverbed. The driver announced (on request) that we would wait here two hours before continuing on to Tupiza. Two hours in Atocha. Alex and I went for a walk in search of a coffee, and although we discovered that the centre of town was much more appealing than the view from the bus station, we found absolutely nowhere where we could buy a hot drink. Instead we spent our time sat in the plaza and walking across the train tracks strewn with people. On the way back to the bus we found that all the little businesses were thinking about opening up, and then we decided that the bus had to wait in Atocha for 2 hours because there clearly nobody got up before 10am.

More desert landscapes from Atocha to Tupiza, including a number of hairpins where the bus had to reverse a couple of times to eventually get round them. We arrived in Tupiza at 1:30pm, but the last couple of hours of the journey were agony for me as my head was throbbing and I tried to sit as still as possible with a wet cloth covering my eyes and forehead. By the time I got off the bus I was a wreck. I sat on my bag against a wall in the station while Alex went to assess where our hotel was. We then walked very slowly to Hotel Mitru and once we had our room, enquired after an english-speaking doctor. The hotel is really nice, with comfortable rooms and a solar-heated pool (that I never got to go in), but unbelievably they didn´t have a single number for a doctor!

Alex left me in the room and went to speak to the tour agency attached to the hotel. They tried to help, but the only doctor they knew was a man called Dr Cabezas (which aptly mean Dr Heads), who worked at the hospital and could see patients at his clinic at 6pm. Apparently no doctors in Tupiza speak english. The lady also put a cross on a map for where there is a private clinic, and as we considered that our best option we walked there to find no clinic at all. I slumped on the curb unable to walk any further and Alex went off to ask someone else, eventually returning in a taxi to collect me (I had been having some really dodgy looks in the meantime) and we drove to Clinica Morales - another private clinic that actually did exist.

At Clinica Morales we spoke to the doctor and he told us to wait, but half an hour later the assistant told us they were too full to see me. The situation was getting more desperate, as we had big concerns that I was suffering from altitude sickness. So we took another taxi directly to the hospital, and after some infuriation waiting for the emergency receptionist to trundle to her desk for us to register (which cost us 80p), and further amazement as we struggled to find the emergency ward through absence of signage, we actually got to see the doctor straight away.

The doctor was really lovely and very patient with our spanish (which excelled itself by the way). We don´t know what his name was, but we like to think it was Dr Cabezas. He asked me a lot of questions such as whether I´d eaten cheese and/or tinned food, and concluded that I had a fever and infection. The main point was that it was definitely not altitude sickness since my blood pressure was fine, and that gave me a lot of relief. His orders were to rest in bed and drink a lot of water, and that was music to my ears - there was no place else I´d rather be!

The rest of the afternoon I spent in bed, mostly asleep or watching some sequel of Rambo in spanish. Unfortunately it had more dialogue in it than we anticipated and so had to turn it off.

Day 124 - I woke up feeling a million times better, but still in need of another day in bed. I went with Alex for breakfast and had a piece of dry bread and camomile tea, and while we were there two separate Canadians came in and started chatting to us. I was in no mood, so returned to my room and spent most of the day reading and sleeping. Alex managed to keep herself busy, which included shopping, as it usually does when I´m otherwise engaged. At 6pm she went to investigate dinner and returned with plain rice and grilled chicken which I te in bed. We then watched an Arnold Schwarzeneggar film called End of Days, where he actually fights (and defeats) Satan himself.

Day 125 - Today I woke up feeling good as new. Alex and I took our laundry to reception, but what they had failed to say yesterday when Alex asked them about it, is that they don´t do laundry on Sundays. Bolivians are infuriating. We took it down the street where there was a very messy and chaotic-looking one-woman-launderette, who did an excellent job. After breakfast we booked a 3 hour horse ride for the afternoon and sat by the pool to read for a couple of hours.

At lunchtime we went for an almuerzo at a Bolivian restaurant that was almost empty when we arrived, and rammed full when we left - presumably coinciding with when church finished. We then walked to the main plaza to get cash, which is the first time I´d seen it with the exception of when we drove by in a taxi on the way to Clinica Morales.

We were changed and ready to go at 2pm and some woman got dropped off from a car and started taking us in the opposite direction to what we expected. Two lads showed up and after some time she introduced one as Arial, our guide. We crossed the train tracks and there under a tree were 3 horses and little else. The horses were all chestnut and actually looked much more interesting than most tourist-trekking ponies. A man showed up in a car and gave us half-chaps and cowboy hats to wear... he explained that he didn´t have any helmets but that´s ok because the horses were ´tranquilo´. Being the most experienced I got the middle-sized horse called Capital. We all assumed that Alex would then get the small one, but instead was directed to the big brute called Victory, which terrified her from the start!

We followed the train tracks out of town (no trains on Sundays... like that would have stopped them) and then off-road and into the wildwest countryside - red, rocky cactus-laden outcrops. Arial suggested a trot, but Alex felt entirely out of control and decided she´d walk the whole way. I was allowed to gallop on and wait a couple of times, which I absolutely loved; it has been a long time since I was on a lively horse with an english bridle, and after our first jaunt Capital seemed to notice he was beating the other horses, and then spent the rest of the ride ensuring he stayed in front of them.

We enjoyed the Puerta del Diablo and Valle de los Machos (very phallic that one) rock formations and arrived at the Canon del Inca, where we could get off and walk for 20-30 minutes. Well, they said walk, but it was actually rock-climbing. Once we got back on and headed back to town it started to rain, as it does every afternoon this time of year. It wasn´t a lot, but it was really cool: huge droplets of rain that made the brim of my hat bend when they landed on it, crashes of thunder and the most amazing fork lightening right ahead of us. The horses weren´t too bothered. Suddenly, and for about 1.5 minutes, the precipitation changed completely to huge lumps of soft, white hail which seemed as if someone was throwing tiny snowballs at us!

On the walk from the tree back to our hotel it struck me how exhuasted I was - 3 hours was definitely enough, and I know Alex would agree given the 3 hours of fear she had just endured. At the hotel we ordered tea to our rooms and later went out in search of dinner. As we were leaving Bolivia the next day, we only had 50Bs between us for dinner. We tried a couple of places, but in the first we could only afford and omelette, and the second wasn´t serving a food (damn Sundays). In the third we found we could have a small pizza each, and ended up having the most amazing meal yet... and not the delicious kind.

There were two tables and 9 people ahead of us when we ordered, but what we failed to notice was that none had any food. Luckily we couldn´t afford drinks, because it took the waitress 15 minutes to get one table their wine, and another 15 minutes to bring them their glasses. I had time to collect our laundry, unload it in our room and collect a drink and return before I could smell any sign of cooking in the kitchen. From my seat I could see three of them shuffling around the kitchen and after around 45 minutes the first pizzas arrived... and were delivered to our table! Well one was, and the other she tried to give to a table that had not even ordered yet. Neither of our pizzas had the correct ingredients on them, but they were passable otherwise. We had both finished our meals, paid (due to me standing in the kitchen doorway for 10 minutes, refusing to move until they gave me my bill) and left before any of the other tables had received a thing!

We arrived to our room to find that Indecent Proposal was on TV as part of their Marriages in Crisis night, and just at the point where Robert Redford makes his Indecent Proposal. We spent the next couple of hours in bed and shouting at Demi Moore for being such an idiot. Just as we thought it was bedtime, on came Eyes Wide Shut, and as neither of us had seen it before, we stayed up for hours!