Arriving in Tupiza, Bolivia

Walking down the road, it feels like you´ve been sucked into a wild west movie. Dusty roads, horses and a dust covered train line that is used once a day to follow to our destination. As I´m the girl who sacrifices her guide book by ripping out the maps she needs and replacing them later, I am again, the designated map reader. All we have is the counting of roads to work out how far we are from the bus station to our hostel. Four of us had discussed at length which hostel we would go to from the guide book and finally agreed in which way I should lead the six of us. The chinese couple had decided to tag along for this bit. Walking down the road a young Bolivian offers us accomodation at the hostel across the road. We are tempted but have already made our minds up, we want to stay in the old hospital which has hospital beds - they have to be comfy! We walk through the dusty roads for a further ten minutes carrying our weighty backpacks and pretending we didn´t pack too much. Having passed several hostels and dismissed them, we find our hospital hostal - the door had a big fat lock on the door. Closed. Retracing our footsteps with a hungry manner and rumbling stomachs, it´s now 9am breakfast time, we go to one of the dismissed hostels. The lady who owns it looks ecstatic that six people want to stay the night and rushes us to our rooms. 2.50 pounds for my own room for one night! What?! That´s Bolivian prices for you.

Backpacks discarded and flipflops on, the search for breakfast begins. As expected, people curiously stare at us white folk here, almost as though we are creatures from outer space. We found a place that sold an american breakfast, that says backed beans on the menu. I´m excited, I haven´t seen baked beans in months. The breakfast came out and was dissappointed to find crunchy beans in a thin water red liquid that didn´t resemble the baked beans at home. When I get back to England the first thing I´m going to do is buy a cupboards worth of baked beans and jacket potatoes, because I miss baked potatoes too. They were once a big part of my life.