Trip Monthly Update

September 9 2011 – October 8, 2011

Summary of the eleventh month of our trip

Number of countries visited: 1 (we love Bolivia too much to leave it!)

Number of flights taken: 2

Number of posts added to our blog: 16

Number of marital conflicts: 0

Best overnight stay: Surprisingly, it would be our hotel (El Molino) in Torotoro. Torotoro is a small village far away from cities and not too may tourists venture there. However, an entrepreneur from Cochabamba decided to build a luxury accommodation there. The hotel looks like a rich ranch building situated in a huge garden. As we were the only guests there, we had the whole place to ourselves. After the day's trek we relaxed with a drink in a leather sofa in the living room, played a game of billiard or two, and in the evening we watched DVD's a huge screen. This may not sound as the ultimate luxury to some of you but keep in mind that this place is in the middle of nowhere and costs as much as a simple hostel in Chile.

Worst overnight stay: Ironically, the worst place we stayed was also in Torotoro, on our first night before we found El Molino I described above. This place is also probably the worst we stayed in during the whole trip, it beats even the horrible, horrible hostel in Singapore. It also explains why we loved the later hotel that much :-)

We arrived in Torotoro about 1am and didn't know where to look for a place to sleep. We asked the lady who worked at the bus office and she pointed to her own "hotel". She was quite impolite but it was late at night, we were tired, and I had stomach problems so we just took it without checking the room.

The room in itself was not the worst I have ever seen. The floor was not too disgusting, and I didn't notice any bugs. In terms of furniture there were only two beds and imagine my disgust when I saw that the bed sheets were still dirty! We tried other rooms but they were all locked. The lady who gave us the key also disappeared in the meantime. So we decided to stay there for one night, sleeping in our clothes answer trying not to touch anything.

When I went to the bathroom, I had another surprise. It didn't surprise me that it was VERY dirty - I kind of expected it after seeing the room. I didn't surprise me that the toilets didn't flush - it happens quite often in Bolivia. What surprised me was that there was no water AT ALL. Not running water in the sink and not even some water in a barrel, which is a common practice in places that have problems with running water. Can somebody tell me the point of a bathroom with showers (!) when there is no water at all?

We survived the night and got out of that place as early as possible in the morning. When we returned our key, the lady was VERY surprised and asked us why we were leaving so soon :-)

Best Call we made: We made quite a few good decisions this month :-) I'm very happy that we found time to visit Torotoro and the Amazon, for that matter. But the best last minute call was probably to spend some time in Cochabamba. A lot of people told us that there was absolutely nothing there to see and most guidebook advise travelers not to spend more time than necessary in the city. However, I found it to be a perfect place to unwind, with its pleasant climate, smiling people (I find it rare in Bolivia) and tons of nice cafes and restaurants. As a matter if fact, I liked it much more than La Paz.

Worst Call we made: Certainly going to Torotoro with the public bus. See Marc’s post for more detals. Phew, Torotoro sure made an impression on us!