Day 26: Potosí

Today was an intensely annoying day. The less said about it the better really, but, I suppose, even the bad experiences are part of the story of travelling. It mainly centred around my phone, which for some unknown reason, wouldn't turn on.

The jist of the day went like this: after breakfast Vale took a few of us to get money exchanged and then took me to find somewhere to fix my phone. Wherever we went, people were rude, impatient and generally useless to help. Eventually we found somewhere willing to look at it and they said, come back in an hour. So, I went off exploring.

I found a beauty salon and enquired about a pedicure - spoil myself a little! It was only 40Bob, roughly €5, so it wasn't going to break the bank, and she said it would only take half an hour, so I'd be back in time for my phone! Or so I thought...

Now, when I first came in, this young beautician was watching her stories - a really dramatic, Bolivian drama where everyone cries and embraces each other with passion. This stayed on the entire time. The place was pretty grotty too. And she was TOTALLY under equipped. Firstly, she had no nail polish remover. Comically she tried to use whatever dregs were left in the bottle before heating a pot of water(!) and pouring it into an old, faded red basin for me to soak my feet in. Meanwhile, a friend of hers came into the salon and she abandoned me to wax almost every hair on her friends face. The water in my basin got cold. Half an hour me'arse... In fairness to her, she did a nice job on my feet (when she eventually came back to me) until it came to the nail polish... she started with French tips, a thin strip of white over the nail that extends beyond the nail bed. Except she didn't do French tips. I watched her as she covered initially the tip with a wobbly blob of white polish. She tried to rectify it. And made it worse. By the time she had covered half my toe with white nail polish I suggested we just use a colour overall! That would be a safer bet. I wrongly assumed... I picked a colour and she applied a dried, gloopy smear of nail polish to my toe (Good God.). Let's try other bottles! (Anything! Just get me out of here!) eventually we found one that wasn't totally dry and crusty and she painted my toes. But, of course, as she'd applied it so thickly (and covered it with a tacky iridescent clear layer) it wouldn't dry... in the end I said, feck it, and put on my socks and shoes and went on my way. Yup, those socks were stuck right to my toes within seconds!

Back at the phone shop, I was advised it wasn't ready, "Come back at 4:30" - obviously wanting to make the most of their New Year's Day festivities that were happening in the town. Knowing this was my last opportunity to fix my phone for the next week, I had to be patient.

I went off for lunch (in El Fogón again - didn't seem to be anywhere else decent in this town). Making my way back to the hotel, I first ran into a colourful parade which I admired for a while, and then into Laura and Shan who were about to get a private walking tour with Pedro (the comical ex-miner from yesterday's tour) of Potosí - I had time to kill, so I joined them. To be honest though, there wasn't all that much to see! But it passed a bit of time...

At 4:30 I returned to the phone shop. "Come back at 6". Right. Deep breathes. Okay, off wandering again.

6 o'clock: "come back at 6:30"
6:30: "come back at 7:00"

I was about to explode!!! What were they doing?! I was running out of time! We were leaving tomorrow early! Was my phone broken? All my photos? All my notes for my blog? Did I need to buy a new phone?!

When I returned for the last time at 7:00, they said they couldn't fix it.

...

Ready to strangle someone, I took a moment out of the shop to calm down. If this was Dublin, I would have handled it differently, but here, I was over a barrel. I didn't know where to go, or even what was wrong! And I had to get it sorted TODAY!!! I priced some phones and decided to take a walk to think about it. Good thing I did too!

I passed another shop which had a bigger range of phones so started pricing them. There I casually explained the situation, already resigned to the fact that it was unfixable and would have to buy a new phone, and he said to leave it with him for half an hour. So I did!

I returned to the hotel, where everyone else seemed to be having a lovely time after cooking a nice meal together in the hotel kitchen, while I trudged in with a big grey cloud over my head.

When I returned to the phone shop a short while later with Vale I could see life on my phone - the apple logo had appeared!!! "What did they do to your phone in the other shop?!" they asked. Precisely my thoughts!!! After a short, painless wait, they had it fixed and handed it back to me. Happy days!!! 200Bob - €26 well spent in my eyes!

I virtually skipped back to the hotel after that! Amazing how reliant we (well I at least) are on our phones...

That night, with the town practically shut down for the night, we all cosied in the TV room for a movie night, complete with popcorn, wine and a cake made by Vale and co.

All's well that ends well...

Accommodation: Hotel Libertador
Weather: Didn't take off my new featherlined jacket for the entire day despite clear blue skies and sunshine