A Bolivian Bus Ride

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There are four of us now, Mark, myself, Hannah, and Aaron, our guide. We are on our way down to the Uyuni area to see the salt flats, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Bolivia in the first place. To get there, from La Paz, is a full day of travel. First, a 3 hour bus ride to Oruro (try saying that a few times fast), then a train ride to Uyuni.

In order to have to most authentic experience possible, the bus broke down promptly about 1 hour into our destination, and our bags and our bus companions got to hang out Bolivian roadside style, waiting for our new bus coming from, you guessed it, exactly where we had left from an hour before.

The net effect of our busride is that instead of making to Oruro with an 2 hours to spare, we had about 1.4 minutes. The busdriver was kind enough to drop us of right at the train station, but I´m pretty sure this was a first ever undertaking of bus to train connection. The bus got stuck momentarily on a side street getting to the station, and we ended up taking out a couple of branches from every tree on the block. Huge scratches down the left side bus windows!

The train was a big step up from the bus, and had a bathroom. A huge plus for a seven hour train ride. The big highlight of the train, I suppose, is this bathroom. Train bathrooms, if they are reasonably clean, can be pretty cool, considering you are going to the loo with great scenery passing right beside you. Its way better than the newspaper. This train bath was particularly (unusually) clean, and didn´t smell at all....a rarity anywhere. Why? Because the plumbing didn´t exist. Yep right onto the tracks....you can see them if you choose to take a look down the toilet. First time for everything, peeing on train tracks.

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Photos

Rotting Train
Trains from back in the day of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid