Accidental Tourist: Beautiful blunders

Sometimes, travelling is a strange tapestry of awkward situations, cultural blunders and culinary clashes

'Welcome to Bolivia!" a street vendor shouts in rehearsed English as we stumble from our overnight bus, rubbing our eyes .

We are embraced by a stabbing wind of almost -15°C. We are naively, albeit stylishly, dressed in thin jeans and tattered jerseys. Without further hesitation, we begin the great migration: bus to Bolivian border. Such a migration is braved by many, but few survive with their circulation and their dignity intact.

For once, we are grateful for the heavy backpacks, which rest leisurely on our spines like lazy travel companions; this morning they are a mild shield against the icy wind. We stand in line with other travellers and colourfully clad locals; their slip-slopped feet laughing derisively at out chattering teeth.

Writing our names on our visa applications is suddenly the single greatest feat our fingers have ever conquered. As we officially walk our way from Argentina into Bolivia, we are bombarded by local women selling gloves, scarves and beanies. Our stringent budget dissipates into the thin, altitude-depraved air.

Realising we have not eaten for almost a full day, we enter a small food market, where the locals are huddled around steaming broths and warm dishes. We try not to stare or salivate too obviously; it may put them off their food. As we meander from stall to stall, our stomachs, as weightless as they are, sink.

My boyfriend and I don't consider ourselves extremely fussy eaters. Bring on the street food! Bring on the strange habit of chewing dried cocoa leaves! Don't, however, bring on the meat.

It suddenly dawns on us just how hard being vegan, in a country where meat is synonymous with breathing, is going to be.

Flash forward an hour or so and the two of us are squeezed onto our ricketiest bus yet. Not to worry - we seem to blend in well. Wearing one's sleeping bag inside a bus while snacking on 1kg of peanuts is quite the norm.

Luckily, the bumpy roads, together with the expertly blended remix of '80s music, seems to lull us into a warm stupor. We fall asleep to the sweet melodies of Bob Marley, "Stolen from Africa . brought to (South) America ."

When we awake, we are arriving in Uyuni, renowned for its expansive and surreal salt flats. We will be couch-surfing here, staying with locals found online, who are happy to open their homes to travellers.

This is free, reciprocal and one of the best ways I have ever travelled. It also involves exposing yourself to potentially socially vulnerable scenarios.

In Argentina, our couch-surfing host, Miguel, had accepted us with open arms, sending his home address and a poorly-worded English message that he may or may not be home when we arrived.

We finally navigated our way to Miguel's obscurely placed abode on the fringes of the town and tentatively knocked on the door. As anticipated, Miguel was not home and so we plonked outside his apartment to wait. When Miguel did arrive, he ushered us in and we soon discovered that the basic English he had used in his message was thanks to Google Translate.

As he shuffled through papers on his desk to find his English dictionary, a large carving knife fell from between the pages and clattered to the floor. "Por defensa," he smiled and continued his search.

My boyfriend and I glanced nervously at one another, uncertain whether to run or laugh. We chose the latter and slotted the moment into one of the erratic and exhilarating uncertainties of our travels through South America.