Bolivia

Dave finishes fitting his new sprockets and chain and we drive up though the mountains and along huge river beds and a few police checks pasted huge red sandy pillars and catus. We stop in Tilcara for fuel and lunch and see our 1st beggers at the petrol station. Now 136kms to Abra Pampa where we are heading for tonight. Roly still on water and Dialolite. The area is now much poorer than the rest of Argentina with many mud brick houses, we finally arrive in Abra Pampa at 1930 and find what looks like a terrible hostal but it turns out to be OK and we both eat chicken and Chips 'Roly regrets this latter' Heavy rain during the night.
24th Jan. We leave for the Bolivia border on good tarmac roads rising to 3780 metres and arrive at 1045 hrs to terrible long queues, Roly is feeling terrible but we queue at Imigration to discover we have to clear the bikes 1st here. we queue three more times and finally leave the Argentina border by 1500 hours. The border was terrible, smelly with lots of people pushing. we did however meet a nice couple who helped with the Bolivia bike temporary import documents. The Customs wanted a Carne de passage as US citizins use but we managed to get a temp import document. We drive over the bridge to gain Bolivian enty stamps for our passports and of course queue again. Once clear we drive up though town which is just full of people taking no notice of the traffic, we weave in and out of people and trollies trying to sell us something and decide not to stop to buy currency or anything else for that matter. As soon as we reach the outskirts of town we are stopped at a toll both for 3BS but we have no Bolivian currency he accepts 10 Ar$ and we proceed to drive 80 kms to Tupiza. terrible dirt roads with some gravel and very corrigated, Dave manages 40 kmph and Roly 80kmph. The area is dry with little scrub and villiages made up of mud brick huts, but the locals all smile, wave and seem very happy. We stop just outside a tiny tunnel cut though the rock face as we are met by a huge lorry which can just squeese though with its tarpaulin touching the roof of the tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel we are met by another toll staition who will not accept Chile money so we have to pay 20Ar$. We drive into Tupiza and Dave finds a hotel quickly as Roly still not well and wants a loo and a bed. Dave latter finds a better hotel but Roly refuses to move. The clocks have gone back so we have lost another 2 hours. Tupiza is a dump dirty and extremely wetas has been raining now for some time. We manage to put the bikes into a garage opposite the hotel for the night. Roly self perscribes some Antibotics and we go in search of a bank which is closed but will open 0800 tommorrow. We find a resturant that accepts US$ and also the local train station as we believe we may be able to put the bikes on the train to Uyuni where the salt lakes are. Roly keen to see the largest salt lakes in the world but they are 200 kms out of our way to Potosi.