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The Waltons On Tour
We stayed a night in the Brazil / Bolivia boarder town of Carumba for a night with a French couple and a Swiss girl, had to get lots of stamps for leaving Brazil and entering Bolivia for the passports so it was a good job they all spoke Spanish and Portuguse!! We went to by bus tickets for the trip to Santa Cruz, Bolivia but the locals had bought them all to sell them on the black market, so what is known as death train was not looking too hopeful for us. Our taxi driver thought they did actually have tickets and it was a big conspiracy to get us to spend another night in there town..turns out not so he took us to the bus station instead. It felt like we were in The Simpsons episode where they go along the street and see the $1 shop but drive past and go to the 50c store etc. We tried to get in to every class from 1st to 3rd (cattle) on the train and had to settle for a dodgy looking bus. When the Thrills sang Santa Cruz, your not that far, they were wrong, its really far, really really far (from Carumba anyway) It took us 21 hours on a bus that had holes in the steps to get on and everything rattled constantly, my legs didn?t fit in front of me so I put them where Sarah?s went, she had to put hers in the aisle, where many locals sat on the floor! There were no lights inside the bus so from 6pm till 5.30am we were in pitch black. We started on a dirt track, joking that it could be like this all the way...It was, well, atleast for 19 hours anyway, we rejoiced when we finally found tarmac after the most uncomfortable journey ever. Some interesting things on route included a river which we drove through and a lil?village where we got dinner from hosted a big fight between lots of locals, got a bit too close to us at one point but good fun still. Santa Cruz is on a public holiday at the moment, the only shops open are a cake shop, an ice cream parlour and this internet cafe, we have been to all three already! Looks like a lovely little place though, cheap cheap cheap! There were some really shocking conditions on the bus journey, nothing but sand and dead grass for hour after hour, could take a while to get used to it, bit of a culture shock.
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