Camera Lifting and River Hopping

They say if you travel long enough down here, you will have your run in with the thieves. I mentioned a camera being stolen in an earlier blog, but this is the city where it actually happened. I came here with Matteo and Baska, my friends made on the Salar trip after our time in Potosi. We went looking for a hostel and eventually found one to our liking. We walked in with a couple other people and requested some rooms, a single for me and a double for Baska and Matteo. We went up to put our stuff away but still had to register with our passport numbers and names, standard procedure. I went and did it right away and then went to hang out with Matteo and Baska outside their room in the courtyard downstairs. The man came into the courtyard from the direction of the office to inform Matteo and Baska they still needed to register, and we figured perhaps he had just done so and was informing us because the desk clerk said something (just being a nice guy, right?). Meanwhile the woman just sort of hung out in the courtyard. So Baska and Matteo went to register while I stayed in front of the room, door open (we definitely had our guard down). The woman then proceeded to talk to me about some delegation coming, and I was trying to understand what she was telling me in Spanish. Meanwhile the man slipped into the room behind my back as I was distracted and lifted Matteo’s camera. The lady soon told me to forget whatever it was she was trying to tell me and her and the man took off. None of us thought much of it at the time. The way I tell the story now is how we pieced it together 4 hours afterward when we came back to the hotel and realized the camera was missing. It made for a sour night and next day. We ended up not doing much in Sucre other than walk around the plaza and few other places. I parted ways with my friends here and went off toward Santa Cruz, with a pit stop in Samaipata.

After a long bus ride from Sucre, I arrived in Samaipata at 4:30 am on a dark, rainy morning. That is about the worst time to be dropped off anywhere, although I would say a small town would be preferable to a large city concerning safety, but worse considering street lights and available taxis. So after wandering for a while in the darkness and rain, I finally found my way into the town proper, about 5 blocks from where I was dropped off, and managed to find an empty room in a what ended up being a nice little place. I found out later that morning from some other travelers that the two roads to Santa Cruz, my next destination, were either closed due to landslides or a river had carried away a bridge. So I spent my time there visiting an old Inca fort and figuring out how to get to Santa Cruz. The fort was uneventful and quite boring I thought. The most notable experience I had while in Samaipata was that I pooped normally for the first time after two weeks. No one was around to celebrate with me, so I did a dance by myself in the bathroom. Ahhhh, the simple joys in life. I left the next day with some of the people, and we caught a cab to the missing bridge, crossed the river on a footbridge, then caught another cab into Santa Cruz. Not quite normal, but nevertheless, typical for Bolivian travel.