Bolivia At Last

Hello Again:
Before I leave Tilcara, Argentina, I must tell you of one of those special moments. During one of my walks while Joy was out painting, I came across the flag, which represents one of the indigenous groups. It is multi-coloured with squares arranged diagonally and I know that the group it represents, Aymara or Quechuan, is identified in something that I have read, maybe even Dr. Mendez book of Bolivian photographs. Anyway, while I was looking at the flag, a man came out of the restaurant, and we began talking. Turned out that he was the musician featured at the restaurant that evening and he invited me to return later. He offered to sell me the flag, as it turned out that he owned the restaurant as well. I foolishly declined. I told Joy about my new friend and she suggested that we return for dinner. We did and he played a mixture of jazz and traditional music on the pipes and the saxaphone just for us, as we were the only ones there. After he joined us and we had this great conversation with him about his career of over 30 years in Paris. Given our obvious fluency in Spanish it was an unusual conversation, about equal parts English, Spanish and French. I really had to dig back for the French that I had learned in the '60s. It was a fun evening and he was a very interesting person with an interesting life. He had returned to his roots in Tilcara, although he planned to return to Paris for a few months every year. By the way, the Llama steak that I had was something else. Don´t worry Yolande, this one died of old age, for certain.
The delightful bus trip to the border, half spent in the front seats of the top floor of one of those double-decker buses, climbed through a very dry river valley to about 3900 meters and then down to the border. The colourful cliffs were rippled and lined with a veritable artist´s palette (I promised Joy that I would get that one in) of colour. You should read her blog for the correct description through an artist´s eye. We slowed down for a herd of burros on the road, and then Llamas, and, later, goats. The fences didn´t seem to be effective.
We walked across the border to Villazon and found a nice hostel for $13 and walked to the train station. There are two train routes still operating passenger service, and as a train lover, I have been dying to try it. There was absolutely no difficulty getting tickets for "Exectivo" class for today, so we are off to Tupizi at 3pm.
One last observation on Argentina. The buses are generally in very good condition, there are lots of them and they are not expensive. They are usually on time, although our last one was the 9:15am bus which eventually left at 11:00am. That is the joy of being in no rush. My habit of wondering "what´s the worst that can happen?" is very useful at those times.
You must read Joy´s next blog about the young women in Tilcara. She really has a way with words.
We are in Bolivia, where the cultures are obvious and very different from what we are used to. It is funny, but it has a comfortable and safe feeling, even though this is a border town.
Enough for now;
Jim