Does anyone have advice on the best to travel from La Quiaca - Villazon to La Paz in late January. We have been cycle touring but we are running out of time and we will need to travel from Argentina to La Paz with our bikes efficiently. From our research the Expreso del Sur train to Oruro sounds good. Has anyone got any useful information. Thanks.
Reply to this The train is a good way to travel, especially during the rainy season - as the train is not held up by swollen rivers. Although in saying that, this has been a relatively dry rainy season so far and I've heard that the rivers that are usually high at this time of year are really low. My brother just caught the bus to La Paz from Uyuni last night and it took the usual 12 hours (it can take anywhere between 14-20 hours in the rainy season).
One problem with the train is that it only travels on certain days - I think Weds and Sat. Whereas, buses generally depart daily. This train schedule might be helpful for some of your journey http://www.bolivia.freehosting.net/trains.htm and also this website http://wickerparkusa.typepad.com/south_america/2005/04/train_schedule_.html
If you are planning to go through Uyuni (the salt flat tour is well worth it), I would recommend taking the train from Villazon to Uyuni. The road from Villazon to Uyuni (via Tupiza) is pretty rough - we drove it a couple of years ago (during the rainy season) and it took us 8 hours to drive 170km - the whole time we were in 4 wheel drive. I imagine the train is a lot faster.
Hope you enjoy your travels through Bolivia.
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