Advertisement
Published: February 10th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Good and Stuck
One of the many stops along the drive to Uyuni Before I started my travels down in South America, I had many visions of the obstacles I would face over those two months. Fears of theft (and worse), endless challenges with communication, and threats to my health from illness and questionable food were top in my list. And while we have found all of these concerns to be well justified, it has been our constant struggles with transportation that has proven to be the greatest challenge of all. The greatest agonies we have faced have been the result of endless waits for buses, or, often worse, the bus rides themselves.
These hardships didn´t really begin until we tried to leave Arica, Chile for Uyuni, Bolivia. We had to wait four days before we could catch a ride to our first stop in Bolivia, forcing us to wait around dull Arica with very little to do. Damned if we could find a single English novel in the entire city. This was just the beginning of our transportation woes.
Our plans of catching the highly-recommended train from the city of Oruro to Uyuni were quickly discarded when we found that the train was booked solid, and unavailable for days. That left us with
Buses are Great!
Can you tell how happy we are? no other option than the bus. Unfortunately, the bus also was booked up tight for a full day. But, hell, what´s some more waiting? The only bus options were late at night, meaning a ride in the dark.
That night, when our bus pulled into the terminal, I quickly learned where Chilean buses go to die. Our bus looked a wreck. I was quite happy it was dark because I didn´t want a closer look at what was to be my seat/bed for the next 8 hours (that was our optimistic estimate for the journey). The bright side to the disrepair was the fact that the speakers were pretty much shot, so we didn´t have to endure Bolivian pop music throughout the night.
The ride that followed left little opportunity for sleep. The road turned out to be little more than a muddy, washed-out dirt track, suitable for 4x4´s and dirt bikes. Or buses, if you are in Bolivia. The bus moved at a crawl, but still managed to rattle hard enough to make your teeth fall out. It seemed that just as you became numb to the relentless rattling, and, exhausted, began to drift into a bizarre state of
Sun is Rising While Bus is Sinking
Some good comes out of the bus getting stuck. half-sleep, you would be jolted into conciousness by such extreme swaying that you were sure the entire bus was going to tip right over. I can´t remember how many times I contemplated exactly what it would feel like to have the bus fall over, to be pummelled by overhead luggage and random passengers. At least the ground was flat. A tip-over wasn´t going to be fatal.
The darkness hid the nature of the landscape, but I do know the trip invovled fording several creeks, big mud-puddles and endless washboard. At some point in the night, the bus died, losing all power. This must have been a frequent occurence, because the staff seemed to know exactly what the problem was, as though they were expecting it to happen. After 15 or 20 minutes, the bus was bumping it´s way along the road again.
The fun was interupted yet again early in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to contemplate cracking over the horizon. There was just enough light for all of the passengers to watch the bus get stuck in a creek. So off we got for about an hour to watch the sun rise and the bus sink. It was at this time that we noticed that somewhere along the way, we had lost the rear bumper. With a lot of digging, tire-spinning and strategically-placed wood, the bus eventually reached solid ground and we hit the road again.
We arrived in Uyuni at 8 in the morning. In grand total, the 250 kilometer drive took 12 hours. At least we arrived at town in the day, so we didn´t have to worry about looking for a hostel at 4 in the morning, as we were expecting.
Ah, the joys of travelling in South America. I am hoping we have got the worst out of the way. I´d rather not repeat this experience in the mountains, where we can also expect such exciting things as landslides and road closures. Well, we´ll cross that bridge when we get there. Oh, no! What do you mean the bridge is washed out? Crap! You mean we have to stay here for four more days?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 12; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0746s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb