Sucre and Samaipata

So, after a few boring days in Sucre - highlights of which included dinosaur footprints and a really nice sandwich in a café where I read some of my spanish book - I moved on to Samaipata. I had intended on going to Santa Cruz, but I really wasn't in the mood for another big city, so I thought I'd chance it on a little village just south of Santa Cruz called Samaipata. I'd heard it was nice, there were ruins nearby, and there was a Dutch run campsite. So I emailed ahead, and not waiting for the reply, I jumped on a bus headed towards Santa Cruz, asking the driver to let me know when to get off.

Now, Bolivian buses raise many Life Questions. My previous experience, from Uyuni to Sucre via Potosi, involved the bus stopping in Potosi for FOUR HOURS in the middle of the night, whilst everyone slept, unawares (I was awares) and then a man ran onto my bus saying 'Sucre?!', rushing me off and throwing me and my bag onto another bus where all the Bolivians stared at me as I had to haul my pack right to the back seat, taking out some small children sleeping in the aisles on the way. After this experience I thought, I AM A TOURIST, and had a small internal tantrum about being superior, and wanting high quality buses, so I picked the bus company with the most deluxe looking bus photo in their office, but I suspected GROSS DECEPTION, and true to Bolivian form, what turned up was a collectivo (rattly tin bus) with soft seats and no toilet. But one must accept ones fate, and so I spent the next 12 hours pondering the following:

Why am I the always the only gringa on the bus on a standard tourist route?
Why are these buses only capable of travelling a maximum of 40mph? (slower up and down hills)
Why must we stop at every village to allow people on the bus to sell us eggs and potatoes that we don't want, or to shove soda pop through the windows as we throw money to them?
Why do Bolivians not book seats for their children, and instead allow them to sleep in the aisles?
Why do all Bolivians, all of them, without fail, sound like they have whooping cough?
Why?
Why?
Why?

It really does make you question basic concepts of humanity and existence.

Anyway, after an hour delay, a midnight stop at a random village for potatoes, chicken and rice and baño, I somehow managed to get some pretty good sleep. This makes me a superhero, as it is logistically impossible to sleep on these buses, unless you are a malnourished Bolivian child sleeping and coughing in the aisles. Then, at around 6am, the bus stopped and the driver stuck his head into the bus and said something along the lines of, 'Where's the tourist, the white girl?' I know he said white girl cos he did the international cheek-stroking sign that refers to skin colour. And THE WHOLE BUS turned around and pointed at me. Literally pointed. With fingers. 'This is Samaipata', the driver said and I, feeling very self conscious and DIFFERENT, put on my best, silly British accent and said 'oh! that's me! jolly good, tally ho!' and jumped off the bus.

Samaipata is truly beautiful. It's set in cloud forest, which is apparently like rainforest, but a big higher up, and all the hills surrounding it are green and lush and the cloud sits down on the horizon in the morning and it's very nice. I like. I'm camping in a tent lent to me by some elderly Dutch hippies who run a sustainable campsite/cabins on a hill just out of town. They make jam and have 8 types of fruit tea from their garden, and there is a herboria (I haven't discovered if it is a truly Dutch herboria yet, or if it is completely kosher), horses, beautiful dogs, fireflies, bees and frogs. It really is a little paradise and I'm loving every second of it. So much so that I don't want to leave, but I know I must!

I walked up to some nearby pre-Inca ruins yesterday with Victor the Australian park ranger, who exposed me for the poor walker I really am by getting half way through the walk back and saying: show me how much water you have! Do you think this is a stroll in the park? I did not have any water, because he had offered to share his at the beginning of the day. I also didn't have sunscreen because it was raining when we started off, which is the same reason I didn't have a hat. He also scolded me for not peeing enough, which was a clear sign I wasn't drinking enough water. But whatever, I beat him at scrabble that evening with 'DJ' plus triple word score and 'IQ', so I win.

This morning I went horseriding with Jessica, one half of the couple who will be covering the Dutch hippies' holiday to La Paz and she (who has been riding since she was 2 which is apparently possible/legal), said that I was very relaxed and competent for an (almost) first time rider, even when the horse got spooked by a bike and started to back down the hill backwards, which I'll admit, I nearly wet my pants over. I didn't tell her this, of course, as I was trying to save face.

I have noticed that nobody seems to comment unless I post photos. This is a clear indication that literacy in the UK is declining and we are turning into a visual generation. This saddens me. Do you not enjoy my stories? Did your parents not read to you when you were younger? Do letters jumble up and swim around in front of you when you try and read them on the screen? Do you not find my writing sans images deserving of comments?

Or maybe I am boring you? Hmmmmmmm? Comments please.