La Frontera: La Quiaca / Villazón

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I arrived at the border last Saturday. Journey details:

Origen/Destination... Salta - La Quiaca
Mode of transport... Bus
Company... Flecha Bus
Cost.... 35 Pesos
Duration... about 7 hours
Remarks... I got the night bus up which left Salta at half past midnight Saturday. The cost of 35 euros was a standard price (every company was charging it). Flecha Bus were ok but the bus I got on didn't actually say La Quiaca on the front, but JuJuy. After enquiring with the driver I discovered that the bus did, in fact, go all the way up to the border.

I arrived in La Quiaca at around 7am freezing my nipples off and feeling a little depressed at my continued inability to sleep on anything moving. I left the bus and asked a random guy where the border was... something I didn't really need to do as most people were heading in that direction anyway. The walk was only 6/7 minutes so it definitely isn't worth taxying it.

The crossing itself was easy enough, and I crossed over to Villazón without any problems. By this time it was around 8am and everything was closed... a problem I hadn't forseen. I changed my Arg pesos near the border and strolled up to the train station to buy my tickets for Uyuni. The train left at 3:30pm meaning I had a good few hours to bum around Villazón... a depressing prospect given how cold it was and how nothing was open. The depression was enforced later on when I found out that Bolivia is one hour behind Argentina time and I therefore had even longer to wait than I first thought.

There was nothing to do there. I strolled around the same streets about a dozen times, used the skankiest bathroom I've ever been in in my life (and got seriously offended when the woman actually charged me for using it) and little else. I did get chattin to a friendly old couple for a while as I was sitting at the main Plaza. They were very nice and invited me to a great empanada place they knew. I accepted the offer. I managed to pass a couple of entertaining hours listening to them talk about why Americans speak so badly and how Machu Picchu must have been built by extra-terrestrials since the equipment didn't exist in those times to build such a structure. The truth is out there, I'm sure.

3:30pm eventually came around and I hopped onto the Expreso del Sur up to Uyuni and the famous Salinas.

Suerte.

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