Thanks for booking with us, and it was my pleasure guiding you guys. I started this business out of a deep passion for this country, its incredible cultures, dynamic and breathtaking landscapes and the excitement and unpredictability Bolivia always provides. As Bolivia has become a more popular destination for tourists we now occasionally get people who are not fun to guide. This is not a great country for tourists and I sometimes feel caught in between Bolivia's idiosyncrasies and people who would be better off travelling to Disney World or on a cruise ship. When I get a couple of travelers like you guys I love my job, and I will tirelessly guide until I feel I've provided an amazing travel experience, no matter what weather or politics might throw at us. Thank you. Hope to see you both again. Kind regards, Caleb

"Pompous, rude, cynical... but altogether a couple of nice blokes" While I appreciate you and your husband booking a tour with us, and for the most part enjoyed your company, when someone begins the day with "I am the dean of a prominent financial university in the United Kingdom" in a "you'll lick the filth off the bottom of my shoes" voice I know what sort of day it will be. Most attempts I made to explain the history of Bolivia were met with your husband's rudely timed throat clearing. I usually go over 10,000 years of it in as little or as much detail as my clients want with Angela providing the Tiwanaku era at the site. I never could get into a rhythm with the two of you. It made me wonder if both of you worked in education, or just your husband. I am surprised to get a compliment on lunch. Listening to your sarcasm while I was cooking for you ("How's the "chef" doing"?) was quickly silenced from both of you after the first bite. Nothing like making someone eat their words with delicious food. Was it the pulled BBQ chicken sandwich on fresh baked corn bread I cooked for you over an open fire, after handing the two of you cold beers and listening to your insults, or was it my butter/beer carrots with fresh local herbs? As there were a lot of parties on the day we ran the tour, and I have lived here a number of years, am married to a Bolivian, have a Bolivian son and live in a Bolivian household, in reference to you mentioning my comment about chewing coca as a "way to integrate and be accepted by local Bolivians" I was directing it at the two of you, for two reasons: 1. The two of you looked rather absurd to the locals for some reason or other (they were pointing at you and laughing at the party we stopped at in the village of Tiwanaku) and I thought it would make you guys look a little... "cooler" or acceptable to the "locals". "When in Rome" right? 2. I was willing to give anything to see either one of you with a little coca juice dribbling out the corners of your mouths myself, and the predictable fits of laughter from onlookers. In reference to my own chewing, I integrated into this culture years ago. Be it lime with stevia, baking soda or ashes from a fire (I recommend trying the coffee flavoured bicarbonato) you need to add an alkaline substance to the leaves for them to work and they're about as much an intoxicant as strong coffee. If you thought my chewing coca was uncouth I thought your sarcastic comments were too. If someone can show up to my hotel on time, run an 11 hour tour, drive, lecture, cook, and maintain the hours of the itinerary flawlessly through absolute chaos I would not fault them on chewing a little coca (you exaggerated how much I chewed just a bit). If I do everything I advertised I would, professionally, if someone doesn't like me as a person and are going to fault my character despite me giving them 110% over the course of a 13 hour work day they can kiss me between the cheeks. Most people aren't so aloof and like that I act myself with them. You forgot to mention we ran the tour for you on 6 de agosto, Bolivia's independence day, and that we ran the tour for you on short notice. El Alto traffic is some of the worst in the world when there are no parades. If I didn't know the roads as well as anyone who drives taxi I would not have known the clever bypasses on those suspension rattling roads that allowed me to run the tour for you on a national holiday. Most people credit me for that. Here's a biggie, if you are fainthearted in a backseat don't remind your driver of a dinner reservation you really want to make. I drive in Bolivia every day. I have a family and would not risk returning home safely to them at night for anyone. I doubt either you or your husband would survive 5 minutes in El Alto traffic without causing an accident or having to pull over and quit. Driving aggressively, weather or not people from outside Bolivia like it, is the normal here and if you can't drive aggressively you won't go anywhere. On a final note, discussing the politics of Bolivia is part of how I conclude with explaining the 20th/21st century history of Bolivia because of the obvious relevance. I try to be as objective as possible. Having seen injustices on a level I hope you never have to witness yourselves (kids in the upper Amazon with cognitive delay and brain damage drinking water with 50 times the acceptable mercury levels from gold mining for example) it is hard to be entirely dispassionate about what you've seen. Given your respective views on politics, immigration and us commoners that I had to listen to it comes as no surprise that kids in the upper Amazon with brain damage were of little concern to you so long as the gears of industry and commerce continue to turn in right mercurial fashion. In reference to your future travel plans and my recommendations for a 2 day road trip from Nashville: Take I-40 eastbound from Nashville. Leave by 6:30 am. That should get you to S.R. 66 southbound to Gatlinburg by 10 am. Enter Smokey Mountains National Park at Gatlinburg and take a left onto the Blue Ridge Parkway northbound. It is one of the prettiest drives in the Eastern United States. You can find beautiful hiking along the way to Asheville, and in Asheville great food, music and lodging. Be sure to drop the English patrician act before going out to see some live music. The locals don't respond well to it.