Up early for another bus ride to take us to Oruro where we then are catching a train to Tupiza. I'm starting to think that I'm a bit of a masochist. Put me on a comfy bus with reclining seats and sod me if I can sleep; however stick me on an old charabanc with no tyres, suspension, windows, seats or steering wheel and blow me if I'm not sparko within ten minutes. Strange innit.
So forgive me if I don't launch into long prose concerning the beauty of the countryside whilst travelling by bus, the truth is I've missed most of it, apart from the odd glimpse I get on being awoken by Ad for either excessive
dribbling, snoring or passing bottom burps.
We have booked first class tickets for the train journey which although in distance is only just over 200km (125 miles) actually takes 13 hours... yes that's less than 10 miles an hour... one could almost walk faster... but there is no other way of getting there. Strangely the Andean countries all seem to like doing overnight journeys for long distances ( no don't laugh) which arrive really early in the morning, like 4 or 5am... hey ho as I say we have no choice.
The train sets off, at snail's pace, dead on time and we crawl through the suburbs of Oruro. Ten minutes later and we are in deserty, marshlandy, lakey sort of country and we get our first sight of flamingos congregated in some water; unfortunately they are so far away that to be honest they could have been those plastic ones that posh people put in their ponds.. but we reason that it's very unlikely that someone has gone out and bought a thousand plastic flamingos to plant in the countryside... mind you I bet they would have got a good discount buying so many.. or they could have been on special offer... buy one get one free.
The journey continues and unfortunately the sun sets within a couple of hours so scenery there is none. The trains has a buffet car and we retire their for our slap up meal that comes as free when one has purchased first class tickets. The car is nothing posh but as we survey the fayre that is place before the other dining passengers we start to salivate as we hand over our free meal vouchers. Twenty minutes later and we receive our lavish meal...lavish meal my arse... we have been given turkey fucking twizzlers and chips... what the fuck is that! All the other passengers have huge halves of chicken or steaks the size of car tyres... we have some manky old burnt to death slice of something accompanied by a spoon full of rice and a couple of vegetables from a tin. I is feeling aggrieved. Apparently the other diners have paid extra for their meals and we have been given the bog standard first class slop. Anyway all was not lost as we ate the free meal then ordered one of the better ones... which was delicious. We also were served wine: hot wine. I don't think it was supposed to be hot, but it was.. not warm - hot. Interesting especially for a white wine. OOOOOOOOOOOOh what snobs we are!!!!
Anyway, with little else to do, we retired back to our seats, reclined and attempted to sleep. All was quiet and peaceful for many hour only the gentle chugga chugga chugga noise of the train slide over the rail. Then all of a sudden there is a piercing, shrieking, screaming sound of metal grinding upon metal.... jeez what the fuck is that... the screeching carries on for at least a minute and then there is a smash and a bang and the train comes to a halt. All the other passengers are nice and calm and there seems no need to panic, but obviously something has gone wrong. The conductor comes on the tannoy and kindly explains everything in Spanish, unfortunately we don't understand a word. A kindly Bolivian tells us that there is something wrong with the engine, which considering that my eardrums were nearly perforated by the glass shattering noise, I had already guessed. Anyway everybody just settles back down to sleep and it looks like we are stuck here - wherever that is - in the middle of nowhere for the foreseeable future.
Dawn breaks and we are still on the train. The conductor opens the door and we climb out for a desperately needed fag. We are in the middle of a desert. We wander to the front of the train and discover that the engine, on trying to navigate a tight curve in the track has actually derailed and struck the side of a sheer rock face. Oh dear. I start to panic as I see the vultures circling above and imagine my bleached skeleton picked of all flesh being discovered by some random Llama herder. Ad slaps me round the face and brings me to my senses. I thank him and he slaps me again, for good luck he says. I'll have a bruise there. I make a note to call ´boy-friend line when I return to the UK.
Around the corner comes another train engine. The workmen, decouple our engine and then shunts us back a couple of miles up the line to wait whilst the engineers try to re-rail our train. Again we are in the middle of nowhere but just beside the tracks is a deserted one horse town made of mud, where obviously people lived at one time but now is just decaying and rotting in the sun. Spooky.
Alls well that ends well, though, and with in a few hours our train engine rejoins us and finally brings us in to our destination 8 hours later than scheduled. Twenty one hours to go 125 miles.... oooh the joys of travelling.
Tupiza is a lovely little town, isolated and hours away from anywhere else and in relatively close proximity to the borders with Chile and Argentina. This is the gateway to some of the most gorgeously diverse landscapes in the whole country. In the evening there is some sort of fiesta taking place and the town is absolutely crawling with people. Everywhere music is playing and hundreds of people are dressed in different ´tribal´native costumes and parading along the streets to the sounds of brass bands, drums or recorded music. After a few hours watching the parades we retire to our hostel as in the morning we embark on a four day jeep tour.....
So forgive me if I don't launch into long prose concerning the beauty of the countryside whilst travelling by bus, the truth is I've missed most of it, apart from the odd glimpse I get on being awoken by Ad for either excessive
dribbling, snoring or passing bottom burps.
We have booked first class tickets for the train journey which although in distance is only just over 200km (125 miles) actually takes 13 hours... yes that's less than 10 miles an hour... one could almost walk faster... but there is no other way of getting there. Strangely the Andean countries all seem to like doing overnight journeys for long distances ( no don't laugh) which arrive really early in the morning, like 4 or 5am... hey ho as I say we have no choice.
The train sets off, at snail's pace, dead on time and we crawl through the suburbs of Oruro. Ten minutes later and we are in deserty, marshlandy, lakey sort of country and we get our first sight of flamingos congregated in some water; unfortunately they are so far away that to be honest they could have been those plastic ones that posh people put in their ponds.. but we reason that it's very unlikely that someone has gone out and bought a thousand plastic flamingos to plant in the countryside... mind you I bet they would have got a good discount buying so many.. or they could have been on special offer... buy one get one free.
The journey continues and unfortunately the sun sets within a couple of hours so scenery there is none. The trains has a buffet car and we retire their for our slap up meal that comes as free when one has purchased first class tickets. The car is nothing posh but as we survey the fayre that is place before the other dining passengers we start to salivate as we hand over our free meal vouchers. Twenty minutes later and we receive our lavish meal...lavish meal my arse... we have been given turkey fucking twizzlers and chips... what the fuck is that! All the other passengers have huge halves of chicken or steaks the size of car tyres... we have some manky old burnt to death slice of something accompanied by a spoon full of rice and a couple of vegetables from a tin. I is feeling aggrieved. Apparently the other diners have paid extra for their meals and we have been given the bog standard first class slop. Anyway all was not lost as we ate the free meal then ordered one of the better ones... which was delicious. We also were served wine: hot wine. I don't think it was supposed to be hot, but it was.. not warm - hot. Interesting especially for a white wine. OOOOOOOOOOOOh what snobs we are!!!!
Anyway, with little else to do, we retired back to our seats, reclined and attempted to sleep. All was quiet and peaceful for many hour only the gentle chugga chugga chugga noise of the train slide over the rail. Then all of a sudden there is a piercing, shrieking, screaming sound of metal grinding upon metal.... jeez what the fuck is that... the screeching carries on for at least a minute and then there is a smash and a bang and the train comes to a halt. All the other passengers are nice and calm and there seems no need to panic, but obviously something has gone wrong. The conductor comes on the tannoy and kindly explains everything in Spanish, unfortunately we don't understand a word. A kindly Bolivian tells us that there is something wrong with the engine, which considering that my eardrums were nearly perforated by the glass shattering noise, I had already guessed. Anyway everybody just settles back down to sleep and it looks like we are stuck here - wherever that is - in the middle of nowhere for the foreseeable future.
Dawn breaks and we are still on the train. The conductor opens the door and we climb out for a desperately needed fag. We are in the middle of a desert. We wander to the front of the train and discover that the engine, on trying to navigate a tight curve in the track has actually derailed and struck the side of a sheer rock face. Oh dear. I start to panic as I see the vultures circling above and imagine my bleached skeleton picked of all flesh being discovered by some random Llama herder. Ad slaps me round the face and brings me to my senses. I thank him and he slaps me again, for good luck he says. I'll have a bruise there. I make a note to call ´boy-friend line when I return to the UK.Around the corner comes another train engine. The workmen, decouple our engine and then shunts us back a couple of miles up the line to wait whilst the engineers try to re-rail our train. Again we are in the middle of nowhere but just beside the tracks is a deserted one horse town made of mud, where obviously people lived at one time but now is just decaying and rotting in the sun. Spooky.
Alls well that ends well, though, and with in a few hours our train engine rejoins us and finally brings us in to our destination 8 hours later than scheduled. Twenty one hours to go 125 miles.... oooh the joys of travelling.
Tupiza is a lovely little town, isolated and hours away from anywhere else and in relatively close proximity to the borders with Chile and Argentina. This is the gateway to some of the most gorgeously diverse landscapes in the whole country. In the evening there is some sort of fiesta taking place and the town is absolutely crawling with people. Everywhere music is playing and hundreds of people are dressed in different ´tribal´native costumes and parading along the streets to the sounds of brass bands, drums or recorded music. After a few hours watching the parades we retire to our hostel as in the morning we embark on a four day jeep tour.....
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