good bye bolivia.... NOT

what a surprise... i'm stuck in bolivia!

a country that welcomes you with flat tires and inefficiencies everywhere surely won't let you leave smoothly on a sleeper train

the wetlands between santa cruz and the brazilian border are flooded; trains cannot operate and buses take about 24 hours on the 12 hours road

so we wait.... and wait....

i'm a bit upset about the way gap (my tour operator) handles this problem, the motto is basically "ah we can just take a flight, but you pay 100usd for it", as if the tour wasn't expensive enough and i was quite unhappy already... i'm really looking forward to arriving in rio and being on my own again; it's just not worth it doing a tour

but the way bolivia works is really funny; no business sense at all: we tried getting a private minibus as an alternative... found one that could take us in 10 hours with his bus to the border... well, in theory... he arrived with a minivan with space for about 4 ppl & luggage and needed 24 hours minimum for the trip - but of course he couldn't mention those tiny details a bit earlier

the current plan is to hope that the night train tonight is able to operate... so, let's wait.... at least i found a nice & fast internet place for once and since it's monday the shops in santa cruz are open for some last minute bolivian bargains