slowly moving east

The following morning we tried to leave for the direction of Santa Cruz for found that the buses only seemed to leave mid afternoon- undeterred and not really wanting to spend another day in Villa Tunari we decided to take the local form of transport and just hop from town to town along the road, stopping when we flet lik it and enjoying the scenery a little more.
The local transport are called taxi collectivos- and what this means is that along the main roads (many of which aren't tarmac) several enterprising car owners drive up and down picking up as many passengers as will fit into the car and drop them off at the next town. These taxis will not even leave until there are at least 6 people in the car and then proceed to pick up any one who sticks out their thumb en route, the first journey both Ursula and I sat in the front with the driver, their were four adults in the back seat, one with a baby, three children, our rucksacks and various other luggage in the boot! I think the recod for the day was 14 including the driver.
The vehicules themselves are usually very very old toyota corollas, all seem to have been converted from right hand drive, so the driver sits at the glove compartment and all the dials are in front of the front passengers. Reading the dials is irrelevant really as most of the gauges no longer have needles, so the driver must only guess how fast we are travelling and at what point he needs to fill up with petrol. It seems to be a luxury if the windscreen wipers work or if the windows open or indeed close.
However an odd feeling of deja vu struck me en route; too many people all crammed in, driving slightly too fast, unable to choose the music, with a bag of our belongings on our knees, sun beating down and wind whipping through my hair; what was it? oh yes, just like an old family holiday driving down to France!
We spent that evening (a friday) in a small town called Yacapani, had slightly more to drink than we'd plannedans ended up singing kareoke to ABBA's Dancing Queen- i don't think the locals knew what had hit them.