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Published: January 18th 2007
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El Alto
What a difference it is driving through El Alto every time I do it... it is so flat! Finally it is Boxing Day, or otherwise, the first day of almost a two week adventure of southern Bolivia. My destination for today, Uyuni, the home of the largest salt flat in the world. It has been on the top of my list of things to see in Bolivia, so I was going to check it off first. Karin, my roommate, was heading that way as well, so we decided we'd travel together as far as Uyuni. Believe it or not, on Boxing Day morning, Karin had a schedule meeting with someone that worked for the city, so when she went to the meeting (which ended up being cancelled), I went to the bus station to find out about buses to Uyuni. I found out that most of the buses leave for Uyuni at 7PM and arrive at 7AM. There was even one company that left at 3PM and arrived at 7AM but had a few hours in in the city of Oruro. I called Karin up to tell her the prices and schedules and what we ended up doing is buying tickets on an early bus to Oruro and hope that we would be able to find a bus to
Highway to Oruro
Are you surprised to hear that this highway has the most accidents and deaths on it every year? This highway is one of the few (and the only one I saw on vacation) that was paved, however, a lot of people speed on it and because it is so straight, people stop paying attention. Uyuni once we got there. We thought it would be nice to see the scenery between La Paz and Oruro as well, so travelling by day would be the only way to see it. After buying the tickets, I rushed home to do the rest of my packing (which I will say is never a good thing to leave of to the last minute) as our bus was leaving the bus terminal at 1:30PM. At about 12:50PM, Karin and I finally left the apartment to find a taxi to the bus terminal. The first taxi we hailed told us it was impossible to get us to the bus terminal at this time of day. That kind of got us a bit worried, but the second taxi we hailed said he would take us there. We were there by 1:12PM, so we gave the taxi driver a tip. We kind of took a round about route to avoid the main plaza which most traffic goes through to get to the bus terminal. I don't understand why the other taxi driver couldn't take us there though. Must have had other priorities. I had booked us tickets on the second level of the
bus right in the front so we would have a good view considering we were going to Oruro in the day to see the scenery. Our first stop along the trip was in El Alto to pick up a few more passengers. It is always strange going through El Alto because of the contrasts in the way people live and the landscape between La Paz and El Alto. Finally we were on the highway to Oruro. It is so straight and as the Altiplano is so flat, you can see the highway for kilometers ahead of you. I have actually heard that this highway has the most accidents and fatalities every year in Bolivia. That's right, less people die on the World's Most Dangerous Highway, mainly because there is less traffic on that highway. Anyhow, about an hour into the three and a half hour trip, Karin and I obviously could not take anymore of the flat scenary and were fast asleep. We woke up as we were entering Oruro. It is really too bad that you have to enter the city by the highway because the city looks horrible. I can't think of any words to describe how ugly
it looks when entering the city from the highway. Karin and I were beginning to wonder why we took and early bus to Oruro to explore the city for a few hours. At the bus station, we were able to find a bus right away that left at 8PM for Uyuni, arriving in Uyuni at 3AM. Only 40 bolivianos for a seven hour ride, so cheap! Karin and I checked our bags into the bag check and headed out to see if Oruro could get any better or worse.
First thing you can really notice in Oruro is how flat it is. Flat seems strange now after living in La Paz for the last two months. As we were heading towards the main plaza to find something to eat, we passed an advertisement for Paceña beer that had a half-naked white woman on it, defintiely a market ploy. As this ad was right in the middle of the plaza it made me think if they wanted men to get into accidents here. Walking down what looked to be the main road, you notice that the train tracks also go down this road as well. Quite interesting that there is
Riding in the back of a brick truck
I don't think you could get away with this is Canada, but everyone rides in the back of trucks here. nothing that stops vehicles from driving on the tracks or just sitting on the tracks to stop a train. We ended up walking through a market where they sold everything from toys to book to illegitimate DVDs and CDs. We seemed to be getting closer to downtown but we were begin to notice the lack of restaurants in town. Walking down one street we noticed that there is no short supply of lawyers (abogados) in this town and there is a whole block just dedicated to them. Maybe they are needed by the people who get distracted by that advertisement in the traffic circle who get into accidents. Who knows? Finally we made it to the main plaza and found a pizzeria which served some good pizza. That's all we could find for restaurants in town. The plaza was well decorated for Christmas with lights and ornaments, but some of the lights were flashing at incredible speeds which makes me think that all the rejected flashing lights from the Western world ended up here in Bolivia.
After dinner, we headed back to the bus station to retrieve our bags and find our bus to Uyuni. I think we were
the last people to get on the bus. I must admit the bus wasn't the best looking bus I have ever seen, and being the only two non-Bolivian people on the bus made it a little more interesting. Karin started reading her book on the bus but after about five minutes, the bus driver shut out the lights so all there was left to do was sleep. That´s is what I tried to do as well. At around 12AM, I noticed the bus was stopped and heard some banging outside for a while. I assume we had a flat tire as it seems to happen alot here. The air on the bus was getting very stale by this point. There were people in sleeping bags sleeping on the floor right next to my feet. I sure hope that my feet didn't smell. At about 3:30AM, Karin woke up and wondered if we had missed our stop but I assured her that we had not made it to Uyuni yet. Finally, at 4AM we rolled into Uyuni, only an hour late. Can you believe at that time of day they have people at the bus stop trying to get your to
go on a tour of the salt flats at 10:30AM the next morning. Karin and I were tired and when a taxi driver came up to us and mentioned that he knew of a place in town with room for us, we jumped on it immediately so we could get some sleep.
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