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We had to ride a bus south for part of the trip from La Paz to Uyuni. We stopped in Oruro for the night. We had to wait for about two hours at the crack of dawn to get tickets for the train. We decided to ride in the most posh class on the train because it was just a few bucks more. About half way through the trip we had to stop for some reason. We got bored and used my leatherman to open the locks on the doors to see what was going on. There was a whole group of people standing in the tracks holding a Bolivian flag. We never did figure out what the real reason they were protesting, but our train was the last vehicle they permitted to pas through their town. We finally got to Uyuni and went straight to the tour company to hopefully go the next day across the salt flats. There was a problem with the water level being to high and they were trying to figure out if it was even possible to go. We had to try to find a way to kill a day in a town of about 1000 people. That was just the beginning. Every day they kept telling us, "maybe tomorrow." We had to wait for about five days. We couldn't go back to La Paz because the roads were still blocked by the protesters. They wouldn't let the gas trucks through to bring gas to the tour companies. So, the tour companies took what little gas they had and went off-road around the protesters and filled the jeeps up with tanks of gas. While they were scheming up ways to get us out on tour we had to find ways to entertain ourselves. There was a train graveyard about a mile away so we hiked out there a couple times. We were starting to get crazy bored with playing cards all day when one of the local kids beaned one the other tourist girls with a water balloon. He yelled "Carnaval" and ran away. We found out that for Carnaval it is traditional to throw water balloons for fun at complete strangers. There was about six of us that ran out and bought balloons, so between us we had about 600 balloons. We went out once to get everybody warmed up, just tagging everybody who didn't look like they would get too pissed. Everybody was having fun and we gave away a bunch of balloons to the kids and told them to meet us in the town square in a half an hour. We got all loaded up and had a big battle with the local kids. Everyone was cool with us throwing balloons except for an elderly woman that one of the other guys hit by accident. The very last balloon went through the window at an internet cafe. An internet cafe consisting of two computers to share a phone line connection to La Paz that you can charge tourists 20 bolivianos (completely outrageous for bolivian standards) an hour to check their e-mail. The owner was mad at first but we offered to pay for it. He took our 20 bolivianos, which is about three dollars, and was perfectly happy. We left that next day on our tour. We rode in jeeps across the desert for a while until we came to water. Instead of turning we drove on through. For about 50 miles we drove through six inches of salt water. We had to stop every once in a while because the windows were too encrusted with salt to drive. We also had to drive with the hood up and our guide hanging out of the window for a fair portion of the trip too. We also met up with some people walking across the salt flats. They had been walking for 4 hours because their jeep ran out of gas 30 miles away from anything. They had to sleep in their jeep because they were too far to reach anyone by radio. We gave them a ride back to their jeep, gave them some gas and continued on our way. The water started getting deeper and deeper until we couldn't go any further. The guide then told us we had to pack up all of our stuff and carry it through 3 feet of salt water for two miles. By this time it was noon and the sun was beating down on us and reflecting back up off the water too. We also had to pack up our food for the trip on some contraption they just came up with using inner tubes and sticks. We also had to lug 10 gallons of gas to put in the jeep that was waiting for us on the other side. After about 2 and half hours of hiking we finally made it to the other jeep only to find our new guides working on the engine. We got all packed up into the new jeep and made it about a 10 minutes before it broke down. The alternator belt was too big and they couldn't keep it charged. They cut the belt and twisted a wire around the two ends to shorten it enough. We drove into the night and found that there wasn't enough power generated to run the engine the lights and the wipers, and it was thundering and lightning. The guide just followed the taillights of a jeep that stopped to help us and he would wipe the windows with his hand or drive with his head out the window. We were almost to our first nights stopping point when the jeep flew about three feet in the air and came crashing down, I was convinced we were going to flip over with all the weight on top, but out guide was awesome and recovered. We had hit a little creek carved through the road. The whole front of the truck was all bashed up and the wheels were twisted in different directions, that and it was pouring gas and oil from a bunch of different places. We hitched a ride with a jeep that was following and spent the night at our stopping point. I have no idea what kind of automotive magicians they are but we woke up to sledgehammers and somehow the jeep was good to drive for the next few days. We saw some incredible things on our tour. We would be riding in the sweltering desert heat and see snow capped mountains right above us. We drove through old lava fields and saw red, white, blue, green, and white lakes. We got to walk around right next to boiling mud pits and geysers. We got to relax in a hot spring while our guide made us breakfast. The finally dropped us off at the Chilean border and sent us in another truck to take us to the bus station.
The Premier Ejecutivo class train ride across the high desert
The Locomotive Graveyard and Uyuni
The Salar de Uyuni
Automobile repairs the Bolivian way |
