The darkness fell over our bus and the high Bolivian plateau south of La Paz. We’d ground to a halt an hour ago, along with every other truck and bus for two kilometres ahead and four behind, their motionless headlights tracing a smooth arc through the blackness. Suddenly everyone leaped to the left side of the bus, as blinking red lights told us we were about to see what had held us up.
A recovery rig trundled past, hauling the horribly mangled, twisted wreck of a small truck. Its gaping black windscreen held no glass, just a mortifying image of instant death. The destruction was so complete, the end so sudden, that perhaps the victims had not even had that frightening, stomach-twisting flush of impending doom that many of us have experienced in a near-miss, only to survive and quickly forget. Our general curiosity dissolved in a flash. Enunciations of shock evaporated into a deep, reflective silence. Everyone who wasn’t traveling alone instinctively reached for their loved ones: That, but for the Grace of God, was us.
Bolivian roads. Not the worst in the world. But as we rolled into the mining town of Oruro close to midnight, hours late, we both thought it wouldn’t be that bad to wait another day and take the train…
September 2010.
Oruro is a high-altitude town – 3,706 metres above sea level on the high Bolivian plateau known as the altiplano. It’s one of those places everyone says you needn’t go. “It’s just a junction, get the bus in and the train out, nothing to see”. We thought the same but in the two days we were there, we had a good time. Unlike many towns on the South American “gringo trail”, it’s refreshingly unburdened by backpackers’ hostels and travelers’ cafes, tourist stalls selling handicrafts or tour companies offering trekking or mountain biking down the “World’s Most Dangerous Road”. Instead, it’s a regular town – streets heaving with uniformed schoolkids, little stands selling rolleños and salteñas, the popular ones with crowds spilling over the gutter and into the swerving taxis, and the obligatory (for Bolivia) bunch of farmers or workers picketing the town hall. Friendly, down-to-earth people, it seemed to us, in a modest, grounded community.
Good food, too.
The Romance of Rail
Traveling by long distance train is special. Whether eating fresh sushi from a bento as your Shinkansen rips past Mt Fuji at 300 km/h, or sharing your hard seat with a Sichuan peasant too tired to honour his standing room only ticket 26 hours into the long, slow slog from Beijing, somehow trains give you memories that bus or most air travel just doesn’t. Sipping espresso with the old guys in the bar on the train from Madrid to Malaga; meeting girls on your first Eurail trip in Europe then never seeing them again; sharing salami and crackers with farmers on the lazy train to Bucharest; and, of course, the mere thought of the Trans-Siberian, which Everyone Must Do Before They Die (but we still haven’t); these great moments prove that getting there is most of the fun.
Oruro’s little station sits in the middle of town. Trains reach it by driving up the middle of the main avenue, like trams. In the station, everyone from farmers to middle class Bolivians, and all kinds of travelers from trekkers clad in head-to-toe North Face to dreadlocked, face-pierced antigringos, sat in the sun waiting for the little train to roll out the south gate towards Uyuni several hundred miles away.
 Japan |
 China Bullet Train |
 Potosi |
Oruro disappeared quickly and we headed straight out onto the bare altiplano. The afternoon sun painted everything a deep yellow and the hardy tussocks of grass that somehow lived out on the salty, sandy flats shone boldly. Far away some mountains left a black gash where the horizon was, a thin line where yellow met sky occasionally smudged as if by a dirty thumb. A small mud hut glided by, its owner herding his cows, his dog madly chasing us across the field before finally giving in to the train’s inevitable progress.
The delightfully named Lake Poopó swept up to our windows, reflecting the sky and clouds. Flocks of glorious pink flamingos jumped into the air, wings flapping and gangly legs racing to get their owners into the air and away from this clacking, noisy monster.
For the first time we could actually afford to eat a full meal in the dining car of a train. We sat in the wobbly dining car and watched previous diners waiting by the end door for the bouncing to subside so they could safely cross over to the next carriage. The waiter brought a steak to a woman opposite, wished her a good appetite, then turned back and took the plate away. Her dining companion laughed and said, in English, “Foul!” “Offside!”.
We laughed together and then, as suddenly as before, the waiter gave her back the meal. He retreated with a big grin, and went on to serve our steaks to two other men on the other side of the carriage. We smiled – we were in no rush and it was another four hours to Uyuni. Back in our seats, the compartment now pungent with the smell of fried chicken, we relaxed as the little train plunged onwards through the cold night.
Suddenly, only twenty minutes out of Uyuni, we all lurched forwards. A terrible groaning, grinding noise drowned out the little television. The train crunched to a halt. Riding with us in the last carriage, the guard leapt from his seat, barked into his walkie-talkie and raced out the back door.
We sat there for nearly two hours. From time to time the blaring TV died down and the ferocious wind could be heard outside. Someone eventually asked the guard what the problem was. “No problem. We go in two minutes”. In Bolivia, two minutes seems to mean anything from ten minutes to three hours. We sat another thirty minutes or so. Some of the smarter passengers had called ahead for a ride, and they disembarked when taxis pulled up outside. Retrieving their luggage took up even more time, and it was past 1:00am when our little train started up and gingerly rolled into freezing, windy Uyuni, more than three hours late.
Later we discovered the train had derailed! But no-one knew why. And I didn’t care – not for the first time on Bolivian routes, and not for the last, I was just pleased to be alive.
