TARIJA

After the amazing Salt Flat tour was over we made travel arrangements to our next destination and our last stop in Bolivia – Tarija. It’s the southern most town in Bolivia and a 15 hour bus ride across mountains from Tupiza. We had heard before we left (and after booking the bus tickets!) that this was one of the worst bus trips to take in Bolivia because of the bumpy gravel road and it’s nickname that says it all; “The second Death Road”. Thankfully though – maybe due to our now extensive experience on Bolivian buses – we found it ok and even slept for a lot of it!

By Irish standards Tarija is a large town or even city, but in Bolivia it’s a small village compared to the rest of it’s towns.It’s the wine capital of Bolivia – due to it’s lower altitude & warmer temperatures it’s better equipped for it’s many vineyards and uses them as a tourist attraction where they facilitate vineyard tours & tastings.
There’s not much more to say about Tarija except we enjoyed our time there; it’s lack of altitude; extremely friendly people; our 2nd best meal we had in Bolivia; lack of backpackers (for a change!); it’s above average wine (compared to the terrible wine we had in the rest of Bolivia); and buzzing weekend atmosphere when Argentinians arrived in their droves for a short and cheap getaway.

'O'Higgins Street' 

We also enjoyed a random day & night out with a Californian couple that we had by chance met outside a café where we had lunch. There were the first non - South Americans we had come across here in 2 days, even though they had been living here for the last 5 months. We hung out with them and the Tarijan family they were staying with on the roof of their house for the night; playing guitar, singing, chatting and drinking wine! We badly needed to let our hair down and this was the perfect place to do it before leaving Bolivia!

We couldn’t leave Tarija without taking a tour to some of it’s vineyards so we signed up for one even though we had to do it in reverse due to the usual national shut down when there’s any kind of holiday – and since this was Halloween, of course it was a 2 day one! So the wine tasting had to take place in the morning, since everything was closing at 12pm for 2 days, and the tour around the surrounding countryside – including local villages & a waterfall – took place in the afternoon.

The countryside was very picturesque and finally, a lot greener than the rest of Bolivia that we had so far seen. The vineyard tour took us first to a small bodega where we had ‘lunch’ (at 11am) with a tasting of 2 different red wines. It was great! The wine was the best we had tasted so far, the setting was perfect… we would’ve happily stayed there for the rest of the day sipping wine and eating those tasty antipasti left on the table!

Anyway – onto the next bodega which produced only a strong grappa called 'Singani'. It’s about 40% and potent paint stripper type stuff – like a weaker version of Poitin!

Moving on… the next place produced only artesanal wines – all organic, and as they were fired at us at lightening speed each one tasted more and more like vinegar!

 Still, the Bolivian disorganisation of it all made it thoroughly entertaining and we enjoyed it as much as our first tasting earlier in the day.  After a lunch here of typical Bolivian food – rice with either chicken or pork drenched in some kind of stock type sauce & onions – we began our scenic tour.

This, I’m sure, would have been even more enjoyably than the tastings had we done it in the morning, but by now – having tasted wine since 11am – we were all pretty tired and even fell asleep for some of it in the back of the jeep! Oh well eh?! We stopped though a lot of times for photos and the scenery at some points was lovely – far from breath taking though. After our final stop to see a far away but high waterfall, we headed home and had a well deserved siesta!

We finally experienced the last of the Bolivian madness, white lies, and chaos on our last day at the bus station. After asking several times in Spanish “are you sure this bus goes direct from here, this station, across the border into Argentina, and into Salta?” and being reassured each time that it did; we bought our tickets and waited for the bus that never arrived! Long story short; we were thrown in a bus-taxi with 4 locals and the driver and sent on our way, alone, to the border. After a long walk in about 35 degrees of unexpected rainforest heat & humidity from the Bolivian side to the border; followed by a 45 minute rest (had no choice…heatstroke!) we finally made it to the other side where we finally found the phantom ‘Balut’ bus!

Again – after the usual self reminder of “THIS IS BOLIVIA”, we agreed that we loved the country and it's authentic South American feel, and we enjoyed (nearly) every crazy minute! But after 5 weeks here, we were glad to be leaving it all the same.

….So ciao Bolivia – to your chaos; altitude; mountainous/ desert like/ wild/ extreme/ dramatic landscapes; llamas; friendly, endearing & shy people; bad pizzas; great markets; souvenirs; tours; regular shutdowns; crazy buses & bus stations; plaits; hats; and dirt cheapness!