Bolivia & Curacao

Maybe a bit late, but better late than never…. After being home now for already 8 month it’s time to finish the story of 16 months traveling around the globe. The last country to explore was Bolivia. I didn’t have too much time here because my dates where set. From Cuzco I went by bus to La Paz, Bolivia. This trip in the bus was the coldest busride EVER. There were two (2) busdrivers, and the one not driving the bus was packed in many layers of clothing and sitting/sleeping in a warm sleeping bag. I had some food to keep the engine running which was good since I hadn’t prepared for a arctic exploration. With half the bus frozen to death I arrived to La Paz. La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and a nice backpackers city. From here I did some parasailing with amazing views over the Andes mountains. I spend a few days in a party hostel and went to the Uyuni salt flats. (easy to do by yourself, dont need travelagents) By bus and train I went there and arrived late at night. Uyuni in daytime has nice temperatures but at night its -20 Celsius here. Brrr… I would have liked to walk to a hotel, but I had found a travelcompanion and we decided to take a taxi. After bargaining hard we spend our dollars on a 10 min taxi ride bringing us exactly 2 bocks from the railway station. (damn scams..! ) Many hotels in Uyuni claim to have hot water but I already heard this often is not the case. So when I booked in first checked that one. The hotel (sry forgot the name) was quite nice with enough blankets to keep me warm. The next day I went on a tour on the salt flats. The most amazing photo’s you see from this place is when there’s a layer of water on the saltflats and unfortunately this wasn’t the case when I was there. Still it was an amazing sight and with a lot of others we (me and some American girls) took some nice trick photo’s playing around with a box of pringels and so.. others prepared better and brought all kind of toys to make nice photo’s. The busride back I took a budget bus between locals. There was a separate compartment for the driver and so I hadn’t noticed the driver being totally drunk. When the engine started the police arrested the busdriver for drunk driving to the disapproval of most of the passengers. I happily waited for another hour for another bus driver to drive the bus back to La paz. In the morning I booked back into the party hostel I enjoyed before. This time I shared my room with an English girl and 3 English guys who spend most their time in bars. They started off with cocaine in the morning. (8.30h!) I must say I wasn’t too pleased with that, especially because my next flight would be to Miami so a sniff of powder on my bag would definitely delay my travels there. For the rest the party hostel was fun. Then when I needed to go to the airport I thought for safety reasons I better not go to the street to get a taxi so asked the people at the hostel to arrange one for me. The ride in daytime is about 30 pesos and the hostel receptionist told me it would be more at night, 50 pesos. I didn’t care too much so agreed and when the taxi arrived this A**hole driver says to me (after putting my bag in the car) the price would be 70 pesos. I told him 50 would have to do and basically told him not be rip me off cause I already gave him a good deal. He insisted on ripping me off and I got out of the car. It didnt take longer than a minute for another taxi to arrive and I waived it down, shouted airport 30 pesos, and in return he said 40. The driver of my taxi got VERY angry with that driver, took of his jacket and waiving his arms and shouting at the other taxi driver that now already was next to his car. The other driver without hesitation head-butt my taxi driver. He hit the ground, stood up, and with his face covered in blood quickly walked to the taxi searched the dashboard and that’s where I walked to a safe distance for I was pretty sure he was searching for a gun or at least a hunting knife. (taxi driver in La Paz, Bolivia at night just outside the city centre) this seemed very possible. Other driver raced off with the car and I returned to see my taxi driver with a tissue on his forehead crying/swearing… Usually I would still walk off, but I had already tried to open the trunk (without succes) and my bag was still in there. So I tried my luck and friendly asked the driver:”how about 50 pesos… ” He nodded and drove me to the airport without saying a word. Then I flew via Miami back to Curacao to end my travel in the sun. I had about 9 days in Curacao to spend with Femke and Dennis (a colleague from work in a former life….). It was very good to see him again after so long and we spend 3 days diving the reefs of Curacao, driving around the island, relaxing in the sun and get up to date with all that had happened in the Netherlands. And then after 16 month I took that flight to Amsterdam. I felt strange…. happy to be back home, happy to see family and friends, happy to have a refrigerator and a nice bed for myself, but already sad that the trip was over. For me landing in the Netherlands was very strange. From the sky it looks like a sim city build country. Every piece of land is cultivated and everything seems so perfect in place. Quite boring actually… I immediately knew adventure and travel would pull me away from the Netherlands again… and it will.

Advertisement