Trailing Butch and Sundance in Tupiza

Getting to Tupiza was an immense relief. Not just because the journey itself had been so arduous, but because we were coming from Rurrenabaque, a town sweaty and mosquito-filled enough to drown us in misery, if we hadn't already been drowning in the extreme touristiness. After all, this was weird and wild Bolivia; we wanted to feel we were somewhere special.

Tupiza is a draw for two reasons. First, the surrounding landscape is a gorgeous mix of desert and eroded hills, true Wild West country. Second, a couple of the most famous Wild West outlaws died here: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. After countless robberies and with detectives on their trails, Butch and Sundance fled to Argentina in 1901. In 1908, they fell prey to the usual temptation-one last heist. They headed to Tupiza and robbed a local mining company manager of his payroll. Soon, they were cornered in nearby San Vincente, where Butch shot his partner and then himself.

Tours following their trail are available in Tupiza. But those with only a passing interest in cowboy lore may be more intrigued by the numerous hiking, biking, and horse-riding options to simply take in the amazing vistas.

Tupiza is also an excellent departure point for the Salar de Uyuni tour. Not only are there fewer tourists and thus fewer crazed tour operators angling for tourist dollars, but the tour from the Tupiza side takes in the stunning surrounding terrain that trips from the Uyuni side miss.

At just under 3000m, Tupiza was a breath of fresh air. I greatly prefer the crisp feel of the mountains to the jungle any day, and compared to La Paz, the altitude was still quite bearable. Tupiza is a pretty little town and a great place to relax for a couple days.

Quick Tips:

The very best thing to do in Tupiza is to get out of Tupiza; that is, to the gorgeous surrounding areas. Horseriding is ridiculously cheap here, while hiking or biking with a guide is even cheaper.

There are currently no ATMs in Tupiza, so be sure to have enough money on hand or enough traveler's checks to exchange.

Don't waste time trying to find tasty food, it doesn't exist! But if you want to try something unique to Tupiza, have a llama tamale from the market.

If, like us, you've never seen "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and want to get inspired before exploring the area, be EXTRA-insistent with your hotel if they have a copy! Ours didn't really take our request seriously so we never got to see it.

Best Way To Get Around:

Tupiza is tiny and easily walkable. As for getting out of town, Tupiza Tours is a great resource for jeep trips, horse rides and other outdoors activities.

The only way to get TO Tupiza is by bus, although there are a few different starting points. We left from Tarija in an ordeal described in separate entry.

Tupiza's a small town so there's not much choice, hotel-wise; luckily the guidebook-favorite Hotel Mitru deserves its great reputation.

We arrived on the overnight bus at 6am, waking the very young hotel clerk for check-in. It seems 6am is the first check-in time, so anyone arriving earlier might be out of luck. A double room with private bath cost $12 including breakfast. The bathroom was pretty spacious and spotlessly clean. We hit the fairly comfortable beds immediately on arrival. After all, a night spent sleeping on a bus is a night spent uncomfortable. Mitru's TV system included Cinemax so I drifted in and out watching "Badlands."

Cheaper accommodations are undoubtedly available, but in Bolivia, a few extra dollars goes pretty far. Rooms are arranged around a courtyard, with a few different outdoor seating areas and balcony walkways outside the upstairs rooms. Tupiza is set among gorgeous red mountains, making the day-long clear blue skies especially amazing from the balconies. There is a small, unheated pool, which only children were brave enough to use during these crisp fall days. The dining area is open and airy, with a fairly basic buffet (best to stick with yogurt and pastries). Hemmy was sick during this portion of this trip, so it was nice to know we could request tea at any time. There is a TV area which staffers liberally use—it has better reception than the rooms, possibly more channels.

One of the special features of this hotel was supposedly nightly showings of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," but the first night we tried to watch it at 8pm, they said it was too loud for the people staying near the TV area, and the second night at 6pm, one of the Tupiza Tours secretaries had inexplicably taken the DVD home.

Tupiza Tours is the agency attached to Hotel Mitru, and the only contact point for reserving rooms at the hotel ahead of time. Beatriz Torres was quick to respond to all my emailed questions, confirmed the dates for our Salar de Uyuni tour and booked our room. Entry to the agency office is right next to the hotel entrance from the outside, or just past reception from the inside.

All the staff members were very sweet, from the smiling kitchen workers to the 19-year-old receptionist who originally admitted us (and then became our biggest fan—he said he wanted to understand Asian culture). Location was good, but the town is so small there probably aren't that many bad areas to stay. Next-day laundry service is available as well. Comfortable and relaxing, Hotel Mitru is a great place to unwind in Tupiza.

Hotel Mitru

The adventures into Bolivia's abysmal dining culture continued.

Il Bambino
Let's start with the best. Located just a couple blocks from Hotel Mitru, Il Bambino's windows are plastered with signs proclaiming its salteñas to be the best in town, including a special version for Sundays. Excited to finally have something tasty in Bolivia, I was so happy that these empanada-esque pastries were only 2Bs (25 cents) each, with options of chicken or beef. Perfectly baked, one filled with stew-like mix of veggies and beef and one a chicken version, salteñas cost just 8Bs with a soda. On this dirt-cheap meal I was full until dinner time.

I brought Hemmy back for lunch but when salteñas run out, they run out. I was the only person in the morning and when we returned there still weren't many people, so apparently the restaurant does a great deal of take-out salteñas business. Hemmy was subjected to the set almuerzo, which included the now-hated "kitchen sink" soup which we'd had frequently since arriving in Bolivia. On Sunday, we came back in time for the special salteñas, which contained egg yolks, raisins, and olives in addition to the chicken or beef.

Llama tamales
These are supposedly Tupiza's regional specialty. We found them in the market near Hotel Mitru, on the same street but on the corner leading into the market. The very young girl minding the pot sold them for just a few cents each. I don't know if I'd say they were worth seeking out, but at least they were unique. The llama meat was nicely flavored, but a little dry, and the masa was pretty bland.

California
We were determined to eat non-Bolivian, so a place with the option of pizza and with such an all-American name seemed to have potential. It's disappointing how wrong we were. The pizza reminded me of high-school cafeteria pizza. A really plastic taste to the gummy cheese, which wasn't even gooey when hot, with a tasteless crust and overly-sweet sauce. It was so bad I could have done better with Boboli. Thank goodness there were fruit shakes to wash it all down with. And even so, I would rather have that pizza than a set cena somewhere else.

Pastipizza
This place seemed to cater exclusively to gringos; it was packed full, with no Bolivians in sight apart from the staff. Seeing pizza delivered to other tables, I could tell just from looks that it was much better than California's version. Later on, at another Pastipizza in Uyuni, this would be confirmed. Unfortunately, the previous night turned us off pizza so this time we chose pasta. I opted for carbonara, one of my favorite fattening meals. It was...odd, leaning toward disgusting. The lukewarm pasta tasted heavily of corn. Yes, corn. The sauce wasn't particularly creamy or eggy and the bacon was impossibly bland. Once again, the meal was salvaged with fruit drinks, but for 64Bs ($8—no small change in Bolivia!) it was too much money for inadequate food.

BY HORSE
I find horses incredibly frightening. Inexplicably, I ride horses whenever the option becomes available. It just seems like the thing to do. In Tupiza, it's a fantastic way to see the surrounding countryside and costs less than $3 per person through Hotel Mitru, so I shook off my usual fears and climbed on.

It was actually significantly smoother than my last ride—in Egypt, across the slippery sands of Giza. This ride was mostly flat, allowing the horses to occasionally break into a gallop with only mild panicking on my part. It was actually great fun, but since I tend to carry quite a bit of vintage camera equipment with me at all times, anything above a trot worries me a bit.

The landscape was just as gorgeous as we expected—deep red eroded fins, rolling grey and green hills, arches, and rocky dry riverbeds. It looked like cowboy country. Each turn was more beautiful than the last, leaving me terribly disappointed to find I hadn't brought enough film. Our three-hour ride included the Devil's Door, El Cañon del Inca, and the facetiously-named Valle de los Machos, the most phallic rock formations I've seen since Cappadocia.

Our very young and extremely petite guide, Luis, turned out to be more of a horse handler than a true guide. Hemmy, who speaks Spanish beautifully and doesn't hide her reporter's nature, fired question after question at him about the landscape and the village, with the response 90% of the time being "I don't know." Still, we weren't riding horses to learn anything. Gallop on!

BY JEEP
We had better luck with our jeep guide, Mario, who was more than just a driver. The two-hour jeep ride cost about $9 through Hotel Mitru, and covered Quebrada Seca, El Cañon dos Duendes, and Toroyoj.

Quebrada Seca is a dry riverbed surrounded by beautifully-colored mountains. Mario told us that during the wettest months, when it rained hard, even hailed, and the water level rose high, the riverbed always dried out quickly, thus the name "seca."

We noticed a great deal of trash marring the view of the lovely rolling hills. Mario sadly informed us that there was no system in place to properly dispose of trash in Tupiza, thus the locals simply dumped it in the beautiful riverbed.

Next, we parked near a dramatic red-fin doorway and walked in the desert-hot sun until reaching the Canyon of Ghosts. It GLOWED red, with every boulder, every wall, appearing to be formed of smaller red stones. Mario simply called it sediment, but I've never seen it in such large chunks before. Plate-shifting had created the peaks all around the canyon.

Toroyoj, our final stop, was essentially a park, featuring a picnic tables, a soccer field, and willows arching over a small stream. Calling it a park doesn't really justify it, however, as it was still filled with striking eroded red rock formations rising against the deep blue sky, just like everywhere else in stunning Tupiza.

Tupiza isn't particularly easy to reach, especially from the opposite side of the country. From Rurrenabaque, we flew back to La Paz and connected to a flight to Tarija; $100, but the time saved was well worth it.

In Tarija we became very familiar with the bus station. The Footprint-recommended bus company, Juarez, had only one seat left for the 8:30pm overnight trip. Diamante was 10Bs cheaper (which it turned out, was a significant amount to most of the locals who chose it over Juarez) and was scheduled to leave an hour earlier. However, compared to the Juarez office, Diamante was out of control. Sack after sack of rice was loaded from the office into a waiting dolly while various hopeful passengers waved money in the clerks' faces and were ignored. Eventually one clerk deigned to make eye contact and sell us tickets.

When 7:30 passed and no bus appeared, Hemmy went to investigate. It turned out the rather dilapidated bus was waiting behind the station, dark and sin driver. The unsympathetic clerks assured us the bus would pull up to the front of the station in five minutes. We heard "five minutes" for the next hour. We entertained ourselves by chatting with other disgruntled passengers and weighing the chances of the large group of well-scrubbed young white boys with skinny ties being a group of Mormon missionaries. We would later see young Mormons all over Tupiza, sticking out like sore thumbs.

At 8:30pm on the dot, the beautiful Juarez bus appeared. The entire group of Mormons piled on. Shivering in the cold, I couldn't help thinking how unfair it was that some missionary kid got my seat on that bus. Juarez efficiently loaded its passengers and left, while we continued pacing.

After many more grievances aired to the staff, we were told we could sit on the bus while it was being repaired. Danger! Danger! Turned out the few of us complaining in the front were the only clueless ones; the bus was full of elderly indigenas who'd already taken their seats.

We gladly took our seats in the front, which provided extra legroom plus the benefits of sitting behind a driver who smoked, talked loudly, and frequently hacked up phlegm. For about 20 more minutes, we stared vacantly out the front windows as a man with an open fly loaded sack after sack of rice onto the bus. It began to seem like the Juarez bus carried rich passengers while Diamante was the cargo mule.

Adding insult to injury, the bus never stopped at the front of the station. If we hadn't complained for the 14th time, we might still be stranded in Tarija today.

There was one high point however, and only one: as we blearily pulled our bags from the overflowing cargo hold in Tupiza at 6am, the beautiful Juarez bus pulled up. We had miraculously beat it after all.