Alter the cold and windy hardships of the Andes, we moved to a different Bolivia. The trees became green (instead of grey), the temperature rose to oriental heights...

This was clearly a different face from the country: Sucre - the White City. Sucre has the best places so far to hang around and do nothing - just watching daily life pass by on the main plaza and drinking fresh orange juice and eating the largest portions of food we ever had to deal with... what a life...

After hanging around in Sucre for 3 days we decided that we needed fresh air... and moved to further into El Oriente to a village called Samaipata. We tried to travel as comfortabel as possible because it was a busride for over 12 hours .... so we asked the infodesk at Sucre Busterminal what was a good buscompany... and yes... of course it turned out to be completely the opposite... never travel with BOLIVAR.... it was a hell of a ride....

But we made it! At 04.00h in the morning we were dropped in the middle of nowhere... We stayed in a super Hostal in Samaipata, with a small garden and hammocks.... mmmmm.After one day of relaxing we decided to make a good hike to El Fuerte (a great and important Inca worship site). After 22 km hiking with about 75% upwards, rewarded with great views and magical Inca history, we were satisfied with our achievement.... A good bottle of Huari beer never tasted so good before!

After relaxing Samaipata we moved to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a place where our nightmares came true... Santa Cruz is an (economically) booming and huge city (1,8 mln) and feels more like a capital then La Paz or Sucre. Our first impressions were already not too positive. The next day our feelings unfortunately became true (was it a self- fullfilling prophecy?). We decided to go down the banks of the Rio Pirai, a recreational area for the Santa Cruzians. After being there for maybe just 15 minutes a very short thriller movie with us being the subjects... 4 men with guns and knifes surrounded us and forced us to give all our possessions to them. So bye bye camera, wedding rings, Lina´s wallet, our diary, music, everything what we had in our backpack at that time (fortunately we left our passports and Marco´s wallet in the hostal).... after maybe 5 minutes the short movie had come to an end and the reality shock came... angriness and happiness at the same time because nothing happenend with us... After having called the police they arrived one and a half hour later with 6 armed strong men.... After taking notice of the robbery on some f%&king blocnote they did NOT go after the gringos but all went back with us to the first (!) crappy police station. There we had to tell the same story again, and again and another f&%king blocnote. For the legalized and printed version we had to go the next crappy policestation where we had to tell the same story AGAIN. With our fluency in Spanish this was peanuts (not!). In the end of the day we had what we needed and they promised to go and search for the robbers.... we think they only went to hang about being the tough boys doing nothing....

The only thing we wanted was to get out of Santa Cruz

. Let´s continue with the better part. From Santa Cruz we took a collectivo to Buena Vista to celebrate the anniversary of Bolivia. The fiesta was not the most impressive we ever saw, but it had a real village charm with all schoolchildren performing in a parade of lampoons and schooluniforms. At noon the fiesta was finished, while we were finally in the mood to party and drink! The next we visited the coffee plant of the village, where we arrived after a Dakar- style ride on a mototaxi. Impressive to see the plants and surprisingly they were also producing organic coffee for Albert Heijn (funny...).

We took a crazy minibus ride to the city of Cochabamba. After this ride we are still not sure if Bolivians are social people or not (withfreezing cold and rainy weather opening the window on the passengers side and not on the driver´s site...) Cochabamba was somewhere in the middle between the Oriente and the Altiplano, and it also felt like not really the best of both worlds.... But, the biggest Jesus- statue was waiting for us (48 mts) high built on a hill overlooking the city. Forget Rio de Janero, viva Cochabamba!

After Cochabamba it was time to leave the city and go to Copacabana (via La Paz). The first part of the trip (to La Paz) was pretty confortable (7 hrs). The last part from La Paz to Copacabana was a not really healthy... the toxic gasses from the small dieselbus were blown INTO the bus, instead of OUT of the bus. Besides this it was freezing and shaking....this time shaken AND stirred... After arriving in Copacabana the first impression was shit. We arrived in the dark on some kind of witch market and public garbace dump at the same time... But... the next morning the town (and we) had colours... Copacabana turned out to be a great town with a lot of mysterious and religious symbols and rituals. Cars were blessed in front of the catherdral with beer, some kind of champagne, flowers and toys (little cars or trucks). In the afternoon we behaved like very good catholics and did a pelgrimage to the top of a very steep hill. Arriving there it was one big religious fiesta, with fireworks, people standing in line to ask Maria for God knows what, lots of alcohol, small plastic houses, cars and dollars were sold and blessed. We adapted quickly to the local habits and bought some beer at sat down on top of the hill for some hours overlooking Titicaca lake. The best terrace so far! What a place!

And then... our last days in Bolivia before moving on to Peru we spent on Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun). This gorgeous small paradise is located somewhere on Lake Titicaca. We did some great hikes and watched the sun go down in Lake Titicaca. Romantic and relaxing at the same time! A true paradise! After spending the night in a very primitive hostal (no water), but with great Bolivian wine, we went back to Copacabana enjoying a 2- hour boattrip on the lake in the sun... (what´s in a name...).

Ahora, vamos a Cusco (Peru)! Hasta luego, amigos y amigas!