After we literally froze in Uyuni, we hit the road to Potosi. A superb asphalted road, with amazing views. Diversely colored mountains, wild vicunas, deep valleys and a lot, but a lot of llamas, even on the road.

After a five hour ride, we reached Potosi. Fireworks as they were expecting us, (joking with our kids on this), we arrive in the middle of a super crowded party. Interesting from the cultural point of view. Colored sugar candies, tombolas, shoot a plush kind of a games, hot dogs and loud music. The city is nice. Seems like a little Cusco. A nice plaza del armas with a two-block pedestrians way, a nice supermercado and of course the stadium. A mix of traditional indigens and a capitalist look makes Potosi a nice and colored town, built by Spaniards for mining the silver mountain that is laying at the back of Potosi. Also a tourist attraction of the place.

We camped/ parked into a nice and quiet piazetta, two blocks from the main square. Our Argentinian fellow travel companion, who is also a chef by passion, prepared for us caramelized onions with goat cheese, served in the park.

Four days of exploring Potosi was enough and the next stop was Tarija. Not an easy ride to do. But that was only the beginning, we didn’t knew that just yet! Dust, holes and big highs from time to time. Extreme, I can say, with our combi. After two days of hard drive we get to Tarija in the evening. We parked downtown to get a center walk and to eat something as we were starving. Nothing in between Potosi and Tarija. Again, incredible views offered by mother nature. After a center walk and a pizza, we went to a featured camping site. An amazing free and creative meeting point, transformed into a conceptual cultural hostel Cupula. Nothing more on this, check the pictures and stop by if you have the chance. They don’t have a website yet but you can contact them through their facebook page: here!

Next morning, like in the Forrest Gump movie, we had to hurry to the border with Paraguay, as Carla’s passport was expiring in two days and we wanted to renew the pass in Paraguay and not Bolivia, so hurry up… slowly with our 74’ old combi which can hardly reach 60 km/ hour. Our cruising speed is 45 km/ hour. To understand, when we are crossing a small village, the scooters are speeding by us!

Anyway, the next road to the Bolivia – Paraguay border was the most extreme that I drove in my life. Under construction, 500m steep on one side, high mountain wall on the other, narrow one line mud road. 400km in two days was like a marathon for us! This post is short and shiny, the videos are longer and more dramatic 🙂

If you missed our post about Bolivian “white sensation”, “Salar de Uyuni”, you can check it out here!