Monday 12 January 2009

New Year's Eve In Tupiza

So we can’t get to Sucre from Villazon without spending New Year’s Eve on a Bolivian coach. The map in our possession bears no relation to the travel time involved, presumable owing to the quality of the road. The up-shot of this is we take the train to Tupiza instead. The ride is beautiful and remarkably comfortable. There is even an old sixties telly somehow attached to the wall playing, appropriately enough (though utterly incongruously at the same time) 60’s pop telly – The Mamas and The Papas, Righteous Brothers, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles.

Upon arriving in Tupiza we discover that this small town actually closes all it’s bars and restaurants at midnight for family’s to celebrate together. So my three friends and I are ousted from a restaurant at 11.45 into a monsoon the likes of which I have never seen. The road we walked up to reach the centre is a now a river with an authentic looking current. It is the kind of rain in which you are soaked within seconds. The few cars roll by like boats. We wade knee deep through the village back to our only refuge. Upon arriving dripping wet, we attempt a toast on the hour with a single half full luke warm bottle of mineral water in an empty hostel foyer. Funny.

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