Happy Friday, and greetings from the small town of Uyuni, in the Potosi department in southern Bolivia. I spent 14 hours on a bus, another bus and a train to get here today — a long, tiring but ultimately interesting journey. Uyuni is the jumping-off point for the tours of the salt flats, which, of course, is why I’m here. But first…
The very, very local bus
This morning, we departed early from La Paz and jumped on a local transfer bus to the bus station. See, there are two ways to get to Uyuni. One involves a train from Oruro, but the train only runs a couple of days a week. The other would’ve meant taking an overnight bus from La Paz. Luckily, Friday is one of the days that the train is running, which meant daytime travel and getting to sleep in a real bed tonight. Yay. (Technically, there’s a third way, too, which is to fly. That probably would’ve been my preference if I hadn’t been on tour. But I’m glad we got to take the bus and train, ’cause they were super interesting.)
At the bus station, we had to pay a terminal tax of 2,50 BOBs each (about 50 cents) and we boarded a local bus for Oruro. And when I say local bus, I do mean local. No more of these fancy tourist coaches that I’ve been taking until now. This one felt like it would fall apart at any minute, had people standing in the aisle when it got too full, stopped in every town to pick up and drop people off, had merchants hawking their wares, women selling fried potato things that smelled like latkes, and beggers boarding to ask for change. I didn’t spot any chickens, but there were a fair number of potatoes and some bales of wool. South American buses… gotta love ’em.
It took a good hour and a half to get out of the La Paz area. After that, we headed down the road — and I do mean *the* road — route 1 is the only road in these parts — towards Oruro. In total, the journey took around four hours.
The town so great they named it backwards and forwards
Oruro is a small city of a few hundred thousand people. As best as I can tell, it’s notable for mining, agriculture, and having a name that’s a palindrome. The last point probably accounts for the statue on the way into town, where its name is spelled both backwards and forwards.
We got off the bus and picked up our luggage. By that point, I was pretty desperate for a bathroom. However, first, we had to load into taxis to head across town to the train station. We’re sixteen of us plus our guide, so we got four taxis and each one took four people — except ours, which took five, once Sam squeezed into the back seat. This was not a large car by any means, and we all had luggage, too, so with four of us squashed into the backseat, the bathroom situation went from urgent to dire. As soon as we got our of the taxi, I I tossed my bags into a pile with the group and made a run for it.
That taken care of, we checked our bags with the storage service at the station, and went across the street to a restaurant for lunch. A quick lunch, since by the time we sat down and ordered, we only had about twenty minutes before we had to go back to the train station to catch our train. Luckily, they brought out the plates quickly — a rarity in South America — and we wolfed down what we could in a hurry.
Flamingos, guanacos and Bolivian Bollywood
At the station, we checked our bags again on the train, and then boarded for our seven-hour journey to Uyuni.
The train was quite nice, actually, I like trains. This one had big windows offering great views, reclining seats, and plenty of food service hawked up and down the aisles. It also had what looked like Bolivian MTV playing on the screen, with people dancing in music videos that resembled Latin American Bollywood dances. Later, they switched to a couple of movies, which were mostly in Spanish so I didn’t really pay much attention. But hey, onboard video on a train — not bad, eh?
About a half hour into the ride, we looked out the window and spotted flamingos! Tons and tons of flamingos. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them — they went on for miles. Some flew quite close to the train. I know we’re supposedly going to see them on the salt flats tour, but it was a nice surprise to spot them from the train. Later in the ride, we also spotted what I believe must have been a herd of guanacos, the wild cousins of llamas and alpacas. It was pretty cool.
The train ride was pleasant and uneventful. I chatted with my Argentinian seatmate and tried to practice my Spanish. I pulled out my laptop and got some blogging done, with the help of my phone’s mobile data. I closed my eyes and snoozed a bit. I went to the dining car with Geraldine and Nicola for a beer. I snacked on Oreos that I’d purchased at the station before departure. The scenery and hours flew by, night fell, and the next thing I knew, we were in Uyuni.
One night in Uyuni
Uyuni is a purpose-built tourist town, existing solely as a jumping-off point for the tours of the salt flats. There are hostels, restaurants, cafes, a couple of ATMs, and lots and lots of booking agents. Not much else. We aren’t here for very long, though, so it doesn’t matter.
After checking in to the hotel, I spent the remainder of the evening sorting and reorganizing my bags yet again. I’ll be leaving the big bag behind and taking only enough stuff for the next three days. The tricky part is deciding what to bring. It’s quite cold here at night in Uyuni; the thermometer says 4 degrees, but the windchill says colder. I expect it to be even colder still in the salt flats, so I basically want to bring all the warm layers I own. There isn’t enough space in my daypack for all of it, obviously, so I’ll likely end up just wearing most of it.
Going off the grid alert
Note to my readers: I’ll be heading into the salt flats for the next three days. There won’t be any WiFi or phone signal in the middle of nowhere, and I’m leaving my laptop behind anyway. So, don’t expect any blog updates until I return to civilization on Monday night or — by the time I catch up on sleep and blogging — most likely Tuesday. Try not to be too sad about the lack of updates in the interim; the salt flats are meant to be spectacular, and I’ve been looking forward to this part of the trip for ages. I’m sure you’ll find that the photos and updates I post when I return will be well worth the wait.
So, have a great few days, everyone. Happy early Mother’s Day to my Mom (who’s still my most loyal reader… thanks Mom!). And have a great weekend!