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Thankfully the bus arrived and after a relatively uneventful two hours on the other bus we arrived in Sucre. Sucre was actually really beautiful; there were still old colonial buildings dotted around as well as green parks and clean streets, but after the ordeal that we'd just been through we all we cared about was having a stiff drink. And that we had, so much so that by the time we decided we wanted to go out and sample a local nightclub we were what might be called nowadays: 'totz boozed'. Hailing the first cab we saw we got in and asked to go to the local students' club, noting as our eyes adjusted that the windscreen was almost completely smashed, there were fuzzy dice on the rear-view mirror and the driver was wearing a Chicago Bulls wifebeater with multiple gold chains around his neck. The driver seemed to know multiple shortcuts to the club, all of which seemingly involved accelerating towards oncoming traffic and purposefully not looking anywhere but forward at junctions.
When we eventually got there we realised that the words 'student' and 'over-40' must sound similar in Spanish as 'Kuntiki Club' was populated solely by middle-aged Quechua
women wearing tops not intended for their gender or size and sleazy middle-aged men that somehow seemed to be loving it. Taking an 'any port in a storm' mentality we stayed and bought beers, then slowly realised that the women of the club were talking excitedly to each other and pointing at us. This being nothing out of the ordinary we continued drinking until one of the women strode up to Jamie, grabbed the back of his head and attempted to drag his face into her oncoming jaws. After a few moments of dramatic grappling Jamie managed to break free of his assailant's grip and the women behind her burst out laughing.
Feeling we'd somehow missed something we politely asked the attempted mouth-rapist what was going on and it transpired that the women of the club had entered into a game of 'Kiss the Gringo' in which if any of them managed to get with one of us the rest had to finish their drinks. Getting caught up in the spirit things I’m ashamed to say I allowed myself to be taken by one of the more attractive ones, but then, perhaps sensing blood in the water, the one
we dubbed ‘Big Momma’ made moves towards me, with her arms outstretched and her beady eyes glistening with lust. Faking a sudden onset of the runs we made our way towards the toilets, and, deciding it was unwise to hang around any longer than necessary, made our excuses and left.
Miraculously on our way back to the hostel we bumped into the student club we were supposed to be taken to and unanimously decided to continue the night. It was the first decent club we'd encountered since La Paz, and we liked it so much that we decided a few more rounds of Bock (best Bolivian beer) were on the cards. Obviously the Bock supercharged our natural dancing abilities as soon after a very sweet, shy-looking girl came up to Jamie and asked him to dance with her. Finding himself unable to embarrass his visibly nervous suitor, Jamie shuffled off to one side and what ensued was one of the most awkward spectacles of SOGO to date (including Matt accidentally laughing at the death of an Australian's mother). Forehead sweating, eyes darting from side to side, hips attempting to find some sort of rhythm but instead making sort of
humping movements at random people in the club and elbows, perpendicular to his body, but occasionally kicking out like a recently dead animal, Jamie tried to placate his dance partner. After a short respite for conversation Jamie discovered that she was in fact only one year older than his younger sister and on hearing this news his movements became more erratic and somehow simultaneously more aggressive and fearful. Putting into play SOGO's NCLB policy Matt and I eventually swooped in to save him by getting another round of Bocks.
Thinking that the day's misfortunes had come to an end we continued to funk out aggressively, but Matt's choice of footwear was to prove otherwise. Bock in hand, Matt surveyed the club with approval, his Clubbing Sandals resting peacefully on his feet. Unfortunately this peace was not allowed to remain; a bald, squat Bolivian of perhaps 14, 15 stone decided to try his luck at new spot at the bar, which just so happened to be the exact position where Matt's foot lay. Crushed under his weight Matt knew something had to be done, but the mixture of alcohol and the glaring shine of the Bolivian's bald head caused him
to take what was perhaps an unusual route and he slapped the back of it to produce a satisfying thwack that rang across the bar. The affronted Bolivian turned around to reveal a comically large Fred Flinstone tie, and, seeming more confused than actually hurt, obviously decided his honour had been insulted and punched Matt square in the face.
Having been distracted by attempts to get the DJ to play 'We R Who We R', Jamie and I watched the encounter from across the club. Jamie raced across, chest out, fists at the ready (see Men of Magdalen front cover for details) to find that the Bolivian had melted away into the crowd. I wandered over leisurely. Not letting a little GBH ruin our night we continued funking until completion and fell into our beds back at the hostel in the early hours.
After such an eventful few days we rested a while in Sucre, mostly using the internet, drinking coffee and sleeping and eventually made our way to our final destination in Bolivia - Santa Cruz. The bus journey was long, and after being informed that a couple of days earlier a similar one with 30 people
had plummeted off the cliff we ended up waiting three hours for diggers to clear the road after landslides, twice, but we eventually made it to the outskirts of Santa Cruz to a city called Samaipata. We'd been told that Santa Cruz was 'the asshole of Bolivia', and given recent events felt it would be much more painless to stay where we were. We found ourselves a hostel that was run by a converted hippy-Austrian who had a habit of pausing slightly too long while talking and asked what there was to do in Samaipata. Apparently there were two things.
The first was to visit the local zoo, which despite conflicting signs that claimed it was getting further away as we were getting closer towards it was a 2km walk away. We eventually reached it, only identifying it as anything other than a normal house because of the cardboard sign with 'zoo' painted on it in white paint on the side. We unhooked the rope keeping the garden gate closed and walked in, and after a few steps were confronted by the most schizophrenic collection of animals I've ever seen. Almost none of the animals were kept in cages.
There were dogs running around and chasing the horses that were galloping through the garden, there were cats that sat on the side, there were pigs and chickens in an enclosure and one wild pig running free that had a horrible habit of rubbing itself on your legs and leaving them smelling of an exotic zoo-manure cocktail. There were at least dozen varieties of monkey, who once they figured out we had a bag of nuts on us stalked us and ended up fighting each other when we produced a handful (much like the Bolivian women we had encountered).
The highlight of the zoo was a group of two howler monkeys and a spider monkey that loved to be hugged by humans, and, after experiencing Jamie's warm embrace fought each other to be in his arms. Eventually the female spider monkey declared her dominance by defaecating next to his foot and then wiping the remainder on as much of his body as she could. Perhaps thinking that I was upset at the favouritism Jamie was enjoying the zoo-keeper thrust a baby porcupine into my arms and warned me that she hadn't yet learnt how to control her bladder or
bowel movements. Being the most vacant animal I've ever met in my life I quickly pawned it off onto Jamie, who for whatever reason made it extremely nervous and left him with a quill in his finger and piss on his shoe. Having filled our shoes at the zoo (literally for Jamie) we went back to the hostel and prepared for our big hike the next day.
The second thing to do in Samaipata was to visit El Fuerte, a site of some ancient ruins that vastly pre-dated even the Incans. We were informed by the hostel owner, after several long pauses, that it was 9km away and walkable. Following our newly adopted motto stolen from a JFK speech - we do things not because they are easy, but because they are haaaard - we embarked on a shirtless run there. What the hostel-owner failed to mention to us was that whilst it was 9km horizontally, it also happened to be a 300m vertical climb. Battling the sun, a lack of water and the layer of travelling fat that settled itself on our midriff we dragged ourselves up the mountain, passing a number of hikers on our way. One
particular couple of very tall Germanic-looking types seemed to take offence to this and started to pursue us, never breaking into a jog but somehow looming ever closer and closer behind and foiling our attempts to outrun them by taking short-cuts. Eventually, despite our efforts they passed us, grim-faced, to all appearances walking yet somehow their freakish legs carrying them at a running pace.
When we finally reached the summit we were parched, tired, and humiliated. After a short rest we made movements towards the site of El Fuerte and were stopped by a ranger and told that we would have to pay to get in. Not having the foresight to ask if there was an entrance fee none of us had brought any extra cash, meaning we barely had enough to pay for the three of us. We went to one side and discussed our next move, eventually opting for the 'Orton method' - break in. Weaving our way through barbed wire and balancing precariously on rocky precipices we found a side route and smugly walked through the ruins, enjoying them all the more because the experience was borne of our genius and daring. After we'd had our
fill of the ruins we made our way towards an exit, only to find Ranger Juan, arms crossed and a huge padlock across the gate. Despite our best efforts at pretending not to understand, that we didn't speak a word of Spanish and that Jamie was an extremely enthusiastic and capable fallatiast R. Juan couldn't be persuaded and took the entirety of our stash from us, to his credit wishing us a nice day afterwards.
Having planned to get a taxi back to the hostel we now found the cabbies impervious to our charms and realised that we would have to walk back, moneyless, shirtless, with no water, food, or, in what turned out to be our biggest mistake - suncream. It was thirsty work. The sun beat down on us and Jamie tried to keep spirits up by reciting JFK and Churchill speeches that he'd learned by heart whilst the vultures circled above. Taxis passed us with their radios turned up high, the faint sound of laughter drifting back to us as they went on ahead. We passed a river which we had run through on the way to the mountain; while we had gone through quickly on
the way here we now walked through it slowly and the extra time allowed a cloud of mosquitos to pick up our scent and follow us for the remainder of the journey.
We eventually hit the road, dry-lipped, covered in insect bites and turning beetroot from the afternoon sun. Still being 3km from the town we dragged our feet, hands out, thumbs up, appealing to any car that went by to give us a lift into town. Eventually on the distance we saw a truck flash its lights at us, and wondering if it was a mirage we sagged on the side of the road until a toothless builder pulled up to us and motioned that we could get into the back. Barely being able to croak a thank-you we clambered into the truck and nestled ourselves between sheets of what looked suspiciously like asbestos. Overjoyed at this stroke of good luck our spirits improved dramatically, which was improved even further by passing the grim-faced Germans 2km out of town who were still visibly moving faster than seemed natural despite watching them from a moving vehicle. We were dropped in town and thanked the builder profusely, then spent the rest of the evening taking naps and intermittently applying aloe vera to our bright red shoulders.
We left for Santa Cruz the next day - Bolivia had been a harsh mistress, and whilst we loved her very much we felt that it was time to move onto somewhere where flushing toilets were the norm. The bus journey there was surprisingly problem-free (the second of our time in Bolivia) and soon we were nestled in the bosom of the city. People were right - it looked like ass. We opted not to spend any more time there than we had to and tended to the essentials - wifi, coffee and broasted chicken. After a quick broasting session we made our way to the bus station to negotiate our ride out of Bolivia - ultimately we wanted to end up in Iguazu Falls which involved spanning the whole of Paraguay, making this our most epic bus journey yet.
As soon as we entered the bus terminal we were mobbed by groups of tiny men and women, all reassuringly sporting mouths full to the brim with gold, promising to get us the best price to Asuncion (the capital of Paraguay). We eventually shook off the initial wave of touters, except for one woman who insisted on running in front of us to the counters and cock-blocking our attempts to get a better price. Through an intricate series of evasive manoeuvers climaxing in the three of us hiding behind a phone box we managed to shake her off and were left to start our gringo-bargaining in peace. It was difficult - there were tears, shouting, people walking out, much flirting and threatening of loved ones, but eventually we came out, three smiling gringos and a number of unhappy looking Bolivians. Our effort had paid off and we were the proud owners of three of the best tickets we'd obtained in Bolivia: 22 hours to Asuncion on a bus with seats that went far back, air-conditioning, food, a toilet and the deal-clincher - three glasses of whisky. With new horizons ahead and hopeful eyes we readied ourselves to say goodbye to Bolivia once and for all.
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