The Long Journey

Today (16th August) was the day I was least looking forward to but I had no idea exactly what was in for us.

We were recommended to walk to the bus station as traffic is so bad in the mornings a taxi ride would have taken at least twice as long as walking. This meant a 15 mins walk, uphill, with a relatively heavy bag along the congested main road.

When we arrived were went straight to our ticket desk. Unfortunately it was closed and had a sign saying bus departure at 14h00. This was problematic. Our bus was meant to be at 8.45 and we had to be at the train station in Oruru by 14h30 to catch our connecting train (journey should take 3 hours).

We worriedly tried the other desks to ask about our bus but no-one spoke English. I found another company with a bus leaving at 9.30 so fingers crossed we could still get there. Worst case we could always take a taxi.

Eventually at 8.45, having been told to be at the bus station for 8.15 someone turned up outside the booth of our bus company. He took our tickets, then gave us a new one which said 9.30 on it. We could have had a lie in given we are going to be up all night on a train getting to Tupiza and an extra hour in bed would have been great :-( On the bright side at least our tickets were accepted even with the corrected date.

Finally we found our bus but it didn't look much from the outside, complete with Play Boy bunny sticker on the door. However we were hopeful as the other bus the travel agency had booked for us was pretty good.

Unfortunately inside was no better. Seats repaired with sticky tape, an awful swell of BO, cardboard hiding the broken TV in its stand, windows sealed shut with sealant, dirt everywhere, ripped seat covers with springs sticking through, toilet "out of order" and a driver who looked no more than 12.

Things didn't get any better when the other passengers arrived. The smell got worse and several babies boarded, sat behind us and cried almost the entire journey.

Setting off slightly after 9.30 we thought we were on our way but 15mins later we stopped on a street in El Alto. More passengers and babies got on and we just sat there for over half an hour with random food sellers getting on and off the bus.

Eventually we left, but the bus kept slowing or stopping, with someone jumping out or shouting to people on the street. Now we were both quite concerned if we would make our connection as the bus didn't look in any state to drive very fast, assuming it could even make the full journey, and the road most of the way is rough track.

All we could do was sit back, cross our fingers, cross our legs, put our headphones on and enjoy the view out of the window. It seems we were not the only people in the bus doing this...

At 12.30 we reached the half way point. So much for a 3 hour journey. Stu and a German couple jumped off in the search for baños whilst I stayed with our stuff. After a few minutes the bus driver started honking the horn and slowly driving off. Stu and co came running back to the bus, their mission unsuccessful.

At 2.30, after 5 hours, we eventually arrived in Oruru having been sin baños (without toilets) since 8am due to the misinformation provide by the tour agency. We arrived literally just in time for check-in and had just enough time for lunch before our 13 hour train journey.

The first place we stopped at for lunch only did cheese toasties which aren't really substantial given we didn't know if we'd get dinner. We took the toasties for the train then went to another cafe where I was given half a chicken and Stu half a lamb plus a plate of rice each!

We got back to the train station at 3.20 and the train departed at 3.28, the first thing since we have arrived that had left on time, let alone early!

The train was quite comfortable and the seats reclined so we had a chance of getting some sleep and even better our carriage was half empty (with no children!).

Just outside Oruru there was a massive lake full of flamingos as far as we could see. Above the lake was a flock of smaller birds that looked like a mirror as their bellies were a silver colour.

After they lake there were just golden grass covered planes and red mountains with the occasional dog chasing the train.

At just gone 4am we arrived in Tupiza, caught a taxi to our hotel and went to bed.