Saying farewell to Gail we set east on good advice from Nicholas from Andar BMW in Santa Cruz, bloody nice guy and he is Colombian, seriously if you need something he will sort you out regardless of what make you are riding.
Heading out of town the overnight heavy rainstorm had played havoc and it was as wet as a swimming pool.
This from the previous night in Santa Cruz at about 9.00pm
First stop was Chochis, an extremely beautiful little town and nice Hotel, the only stupid thing was a local guy with a PA system that started at 6.30 am and went through till 8.30 pm staining the air with what he sells, the hotel owners said he is a dick and some people have cut the cable but no one seems to do anything about it despite no one liking it .... good ol Bolivia going forward.
The roads are a brilliant red clay, Amazonian typical and when it rains not even knobblies hold onto this shit.
Maya at our hotel
So at this particular town there is a rock stickin out of the ground and they call it the devils tooth or formally La Torre, it is pretty spectacular and it is free.
We walked from the town centre which is approach two km then it winds its way up steep and narrow path ordering you to keep you mind on the job and reminding you where to put your feet.
The entry building, beautiful
Lookin to the sky
I was here
The rail from Bolivia to Brasil also runs past at the base and we were there to see the trains come past and swap lines in Chochis.
First one passes
Next one comes up
Our our way down
On walking back we spotted this owl way up in the trees, beautiful bird
We stayed two nights in this town as it was a nice stopover heading to the exit gate.
Also at the back of the town there is a cool wee waterfall with a tree carved with animals
The following day we only went 70km to Aguas Calientes, I was stuffed and managed to pick up yet another head cold, its my year for these free unwanted things.
Promising hot water to stodge around in it was a perfect place to stop and relax as we had not done this since yesterday.
The town is certainly no tourist trap but we found an ok place to stay and we hit the water .... noice ... very very noice.
This is what satisfaction looks like.
The depth varies from ankle to booby height so you can sit in or walk around
These must be strong fish as it way hotter than the human body temp wise
.... you would want a shitload too to make a reasonable lunch 
After our plunge I spent half the afternoon in bed gathering a good fever but managed to get out for another plunge, in hindsight we should have stayed there a few days as my headcold thingy worsened. Not being too sure of what was happening we thought Dengue fever or Malaria being in the Amazonas but it just turned out to be a viscous headcold.
Leaving Agua Calientes to the border was an easy ride except for .... you guessed it, get petrol, more bloody dramas and they couldn’t decided whether our plate was Colombian or Bolivian, unreal, the manager came out and didn’t want to get his hand dirty so he started kicking our number plate to kick the Bolivian concrete mud off so I yelled at him cos it was bending our plate ... fucking idiot!!! ... no respect.
So we paid our respect, the bill was $69 Bol at local price so we gave them $70 Bol, I started the bike, Ellen got on and we ride off ... end of argument!! .... again.
Finally our secret to getting fuel, not necessarily at local prices ... just getting fuel, the bonus is local price.
So we had a sticker made for 20 cents to mimic their Boliviano rego plate, this confused the shit out of them completely, we deliberately left our plate dirty as they would always clean the top bit and soon as they saw part of Bolivia they generally stopped cos they hate getting their hands dirty.
This worked for 90 % of our gas fills, the occasional time they challenged us and Ellen just got loud which they didn’t want and she would say Boliviano!!!! most would then go ouwh ok, sometimes we said it a new style plate and they didn't know so they just agreed, the occasional one would just refuse so we would go to the next station and start the whole process again, very frustrating just trying to fill.
On exiting we had our final lunch in a nice place to try and leave Bolivia on a nice note which kinda worked but I have to admit when we crossed into Brasil I was relieved, once in Brasil I turned around and swung the finger back at Bolivia .... it made no difference but I felt better.
You can't see it well but there is a huge lake here so a nice location.
Next up Brasil ... looks boring but we will deal with it
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