Surreal dinner stop on 14 hour journey, Bolivia

 Saturday 9 January 2010
    I was on a 14 hour bus journey from Sucre to Tarija. All the buses left between 3 and 4pm in the afternoon and arrived between 5 and 6am in the morning, so as much as I hate taking night buses (and missing the scenery), it was the only way to go. So I spent the extra $1.50 and bought a ticket on the best bus available, and it was still rough.
   At about 9pm the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere for dinner. In the dark, there appeared to be just the place we stopped at and an even smaller one across the road. I didn´t understand much of what the woman beside sitting me (on the bus) had said to me so far, but it seemed she needed my support... she seemed a bit fearful of the night bus journey (with reason, Bolivia is dangerous), and she had bought me some typical Bolivian snack earlier and had accompanied me to the toilet.
   We wandered into the ´diner´. Crocodile Dundee was playing on the TV, and two things were offered on the menu.... Soup or a little bowl of chopped ´cabana-type´ sausage and french fries. My companion was having the soup. I looked, I wondered if I should eat here. Was it safe? I decided it was soup, probably well cooked, and that the bus made this journey nightly and wouldn´t want a bus of sick people. I decided to go for it. When they brought my companions it had chicken feet in it. Now I eat chicken feet, but at this point I had only just convinced myself the food was possibly safe, and chicken feet needed more reckoning. Then mine came, without chicken feet, Phew!
   I finished my soup and the only other ´white´person on the bus approached me. He was Argentinian. He asked me where I was going, was I alone. He told me I was brave, and gave me his card so I could contact him in Argentina. He runs a modeling school. Does he want me to be a model? Or, like my mother (she used to say this ok, nothing bad here), does he think I need some coaching on how to present myself a little better? Ha Ha, either way, it´s a funny thought!
   An on I went to Tarija, arriving at daylight.