Getting Wet in Buena Vista, Bolivia

Immediately after leaving Villa Tunari we hit a clearly defined wall of water and get rained on heavily by an Amazonian shower. The drops are so thick that within a minute we are soaked to the bone. We stop at a little roadside shelter for a few minutes but decide that there is no point in waiting for this to end, as it probably won’t and we will be getting wet anyway.

The rain continues for about another hour and then stops. We seem to have overtaken the clouds, which are moving in the same direction, but more slowly. The heat and the motion of the bike gets us dried out again within a short time. We stop for 20 minutes for lunch at a town about half way, by which time the weather manages to catch up with us again and we scram off ahead of it.

We arrive in Buena Vista late afternoon, it starts raining again. The village is quite pretty and well looked after. Beautiful in the middle of this jungle setting. We lodge at Cabana Asai (Tel: 76607951) which provides a reasonably clean ensuite room for 80BOB and has a BBQ, fridge and kitchen out front of the building. By the time we’re showered and unpacked I feel a pain in my stomach which soon develops into full blown vomit and diarrhea. Must have been the wind blowing on my wet clothing all day, and I left my jacket slightly open to allow air to circulate through. We get a warm soup from a plaza restaurant and retire. By the next morning I am fine, thankfully.

By the Buena Vista plaza…

We visit the local market and stock up with chicken and coal for a BBQ that night. It’s always an interesting feeling buying your meat with head attached, from un-cooled shop stalls. Oh well if you incinderate it enough nothing harmful will survive. 🙂

For breakfast we have to ask the owner a few times before we get gas for the cooker but we get it eventually. As always, decent coffee is a challenge, but we find a small cafe at the plaza which produces something drinkable.

But the warm milk, never too appetizing…