It really came as no surprise that Tarija would be the most relaxed and chilled out town in Bolivia. The miners in Potosi even commented that the most beautiful women in Bolivia are in Tarija. When you’re in the wine centre of a country people tend to be a little more happier than most, and not to mention wealthier too. I’m chalking Tarija up as my favourite town in Bolivia and the temptation to stay for just a little while longer was pretty strong.
Arriving early in the morning I waited around at the bus terminal for about an hour waiting for the sun to come up, and at that point I jumped into a taxi and headed for the principle plaza. The Lonely Planet had no map of Tarija, which generally meant it was small enough to stumble on the main streets. In the crisp wee hours of the morning I got out at the plaza and took in the small town, and straight away I got that feeling it was going to another Chachapoyas were you can just sit in the plaza for half the day and do nothing but soak up the tranquil atmosphere.
I ended up staying at two hostals in my stay here. The first seemed an okay deal for a private room and shared bathrooms, however when I went to finally make use of the bathroom I discovered a colony of mosquitos hovering around the toilet. Each of the three bathrooms were the same. It was the first time I’ve actually been off put by the shared bathrooms; generally it’s just a mess left over by dodgy backpackers that eventually gets cleaned up. This was an actual bug infestation that was somewhat distracting when you’re sitting trying to make use of the toilet. Still, out of sheer laziness I ended up staying there 3 nights.
My first mission in Tarija was to extend my already expired Visa. I had looked for the immigration office in Potosi and couldn’t find the street it was supposed to be on, however the office in Tarija was easy to find and easier still to get the extension stamp. I walked into the empty waiting room, sat down for a few minutes until someone realised there was actually someone here waiting. After showing my passport the lady took out a 30 day extension stamp, checked my nationality and stamped away. And that was that. No questions asked, no fines, just a quick stamp and back on my way. Too easy.
On the plaza principle are some great restaurants and spent every day going to one called Gatoprado. It not only had great food, including an excellent chilli con carne, but free wifi internet. In fact I went there for dinner every night. On my last day in Tarija I had lunch there and I don’t know what they screwed up, but I was handed way too many bolivianos in change. It wasn’t until I was at the bus terminal that I pulled out the changed and counted it, realising then that they had only charged me 6Bs for lunch and a couple of beers which should have amounted to around 70Bs. I shrugged that windfall off as karma repaying me for the times I’d been ripped off.
Another café I visited a couple of times had the incredible spaghetti de mare, filled with pieces of trout and a basket of bread to mop up the seafood sauce left over. Just delicious. The first visit here was on the day there were protests in the plaza, and directly above the café was some kind of political office that the protesters were targeting. Dozens of women stood outside on the street hold banners for some cause, and it almost got ugly at one point when a lone man confronted the ladies who soon found himself surrounded by some angry fist shaking women. I still have no idea what the protests were for but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be arguing with protesters when the odds are severely stacked against me!
As mentioned early the region of Tarija is wine country, and what does one do in wine country? You take a wine tasting tour of course! We kicked off the tour at 8:30am, so I headed out at 7am to grab some breakfast and coffee before spending the morning downing wine. A fairly smart move I thought, until I discovered nothing was open at this time and I ended up on the tour with an empty stomach and no caffeine hit.
The tour itself consisted of myself and the two tour guides. I was the only one, which kind of came as a surprised but at the same time it really didn’t. Tarija isn’t exactly on the so called Gringo Trail and you need to go a little out of your way to go there. The tour guide spoke a bit of English, whereas his wife (or girlfriend or maybe sister) spoke a little more. It was actually a good thing, as I tried to explain to him at the end of the tour as he apologised for his lack of English skills. It meant he got to practice his English and I could throw in some Spanish practise.
We first visited the Bodega Grande (Bodega is vineyard) where I had a tour of the vineyard and where they store and bottle the wine. I found it unbelievable that I’d never been on a wine tour before with the Hunter Valley in NSW so close back home, so it was all a new experience to see wine making up close and personal. We finished this vineyard with a small bottle of spumante the three of us shared.
Next up we headed into a small nearby town and into a wine shop. It’s hard not to get a little suspect when being lead into a shop on a tour. You just know they’ll pull the hard sell, but to my pleasure there was no sell, just cheese, biscuits and three glasses of wine to sample. The two reds were excellent, a shiraz and a cab sav, and the third was a white wine that normally I don’t like but lo and behold I actually dug this white; it wasn’t the usual overly sweet or horribly dry but just a tasty fruity flavour.
The lack of breakfast at this point became to become clear, or perhaps more accurately my head started to feel less clear. On we continued to the famous Conception Valley and to the oldest bogeta in Bolivia. This vineyard attracts the most tourists and there was a fair gathering of Bolivian uni students exploring the place. We were lead into the shop that doubled as the wine tasting session. The doors were closed and locked and the sommelier stood at the table were sat large bottles of wine for our tasting pleasure. We passed around a good 10 glasses of various tasting wine, many of which were clearly very young wine and I was immediately reminded of the vineyards in Vienna where I tasted the potent young wine. It has a very obvious sweet taste and is quite strong in alcohol content. Still bloody delicious!
With the tasting concluded and the doors reopened it was time to head back to town. I was feeling pretty light headed at this stage so I kind of welcomed the thought of returning. After saying our goodbyes I immediately went to Gatoprado for some food… and a beer. Well, perhaps a few too many beers. Needless to say, I slept well that night (and probably snored quite loudly).
The next day I grabbed my pack and prepared to leave. I had asked the tour guides if there were any direct buses to Uyuni, which was my next stop to do the Salt Flats. They confirmed what I had suspected, there were none. I could either go back to Potosi in the north or head to Tupiza in the west. After a couple of coffees that morning and mulling over what to do, I decided to stay just one more night in Tarija and check out the what time the buses leave. I had decided to
continue on to Tupiza, which was only 6 hours away, and figured there’d be a morning bus the next day to get me there in the afternoon.
How wrong I was. Bolivia is such a funny strange country. Just went you think they’re like a modern well organised place, they slap you around the head and remind you that for all the advances they make they’re 10 steps behind with other things, particularly transport infrastructure. Buses only left at 8pm, for a 6 hour journey. I looked at the ticket lady dumbfounded; but that would get me in at around 3am… she nodded – is Bolivia!
The ticket lady was without a doubt the sweetest and nicest I’ve ever come across. An older lady, she really wanted to help me and even advised on how cold the bus journey would be and I should rug up (not here words, but close enough). I foolishly took this with a grain of salt and that night I found myself on the worst bus trip I have ever taken. It was utterly freezing. I mean not just normal cold, it’s the type of cold were ice itself gets cold. I couldn’t feel my feet by the time we arrived at Tupiza bus terminal and I enthusiastically jumped off the bus just to get some movement in my body in a vain attempt to generate warmth.
It was 3:30am, pitch black, the small country terminal was as cold inside as it was outside, and I stood there for 3 hours waiting for the mere glitter of the sun to appear and shoot warm glowing spears of heat at me. All could think in that time was I’d look back on this and smile, and honestly I am doing that right now. Not fun to go through at the time, but it’s all part of the experience after all.
After finding a place to stay for the night I explored Tupiza and found it to be one
of those country towns where the locals seems to view you with suspicion. It was really the first town I’d visited in my travels so far were I didn’t really feel welcome, except in the hostel where the family was really nice and inviting. The only international ATM in town wasn’t working and I only had enough cash to get me to Uyuni the next day. So with little cash, a freezing bus journey to get here, and a distinct lack of warmth from the locals, I was resolved to leave the next morning.
The bus ride to Uyuni was uneventful and after 8 hours I found myself in the final town of my Bolivian journey. Booking a 3 day tour into the Salar de Uyuni, or Salt Flats, which would leave me at the Chilean border, I said my goodbye to Bolivian civilisation and jumped into the 4×4 with the rest of my new tour group friends.