Slow train to Uyuni

Erik:
The whole point of our going to Oruro was to take the train to Uyuni, the starting point for organized tours of of the Salar (salt flats) of Uyuni and surrounding desert landscapes. Once again, the thought of avoiding another long bus ride by taking a relaxing train ride was too tempting to pass up.

The train was scheduled to leave at 3:30pm. We say "scheduled" as, yet again, we were caught in the midst of a transit strike, though train travel was not supposed to be affected by the strike, only buses. We'd arrived a bit early for the train (as there's not much to do in Oruro), and we found ourselves seated in the one full-to-overflowing car of the train. Kids under 5 travel free on the train, but without their own seats, and our car seemed to be both sold out and with an extra serving of kids-sans-seats. It was bustling in the aisles and oh so noisy!

The car next to ours was oddly empty, so we planned to move into seats there as soon as the train pulled out, but to our surprise, it didn't. I've never seen a train wait for late passengers, but that's exactly what ours did - over an hour. I guess that leaving with less than half the passengers (all stuck in buses trying to by-pass the strikers) wasn't appealing, and a bit after 4:30pm, we saw about 30 or 40 more backpack-toting gringos arrive and pile on board. Luckily, they all seemed headed for 1st class, and the car next to ours remained nice and nearly empty. We took new seats there as the train finally pulled out.

The ride itself was beautiful - at least the daylight portion, which had been shortened an hour due to the late departure. We passed salt marshes full of pink flamingos in flight, tiny villages with waving children, desert landscapes tinted bright red by the fading sun. Really quite stunning. A few hours later, though, it was just a dirty, dusty, dark train showing terrible movies. We read books for a while, then moved to the dining car where we drank beer and played cards until our arrival about midnight (an hour late...)

We then had the joy of shuffling through 3 hotels before finding one with running water. We slept well, and wandered the town the next day talking to tour agencies about the trip through the salar to chile. There are over 60 tour agencies (and not much of anything else) in Uyuni, but we found a local guy who ran a bar as well as tourist information center, who helped us narrow it down to 3 better agencies. The tour is a 3 day landcruiser ride through the salt flats and desert. They pack 6 of you in the vehicle along with a driver and a cook, so it's quite important to get a good vehicle, and hopefully, an even-keeled, friendly group of fellow tourists. In the end, after much back-and-forth haggling, we did just that. To celebrate, we went out to a "gourmet" pizza parlour in town, which for once, lived up to its hype - it was delicious.
Our photos from the trip to Uyuni:

Uyuni, Bolivia

The mining town of Oruro...

Erik: From Cochabamba, our next stop was the old mining town of Oruro, from where we could catch a train south. After so many hours in so many cramped buses, the idea of a train ride was very welcome, and worth a small side trip.

Unfortunately, Oruro itself is not much of a town. It does have a pleasant, pretty main square, surrounded by an odd mix of modern and colonial architecture, but outside of that it is a dusty, polluted altiplano town without terribly much to do or see. Again we ran into an issue trying to find lodging. There were cheap, very basic, dingy digs, and expensive higher-end options outside our budget, but very little in between. At first we opted for one of the cheapo options until we noticed that the plumbing in the bathroom didn't quite work, so we ran across the street to a much more upscale option. We'd been lugging our packs across the city for hours at this point, and it was raining on-and-off, and we just wanted to relax. The price was a bit exploitive for what they offered, but the bed was big and comfortable and the bathroom clean, so we bit the bullet and checked in.

The next morning we bought train tickets for the following day, and then wandered the city looking for things to do. We found an old miner's museum housed in a defunct mine shaft, which proved interesting, especially the idols of the miner's god “Tio” (“uncle”), which is a sort of devil character to whom the miners make offerings of booze, cigarettes and coca leaves for good luck.

We also took a short ride out to some thermal baths (a glorified warm swimming pool) for a soak, and met some very friendly Pacenas (La Paz residents) on the way back. They had Korean friends in La Paz and enjoyed trying out their little bit of Korean lingo on Talor.

We'd read about a fancy “cordon bleu”-esque restaurant in Oruro, and went there that evening to spoil ourselves with some fancy dining. The restaurant itself was nothing special, with décor similar to the comedores we'd been having our cheapo lunches in everyday. Still, we thought we'd give it a try, and were perusing the Bolivian menu when the gruff waiter stepped up, yanked the menu out of our hands and replaced it with an english-language menu with fewer food options and higher prices! We asked him about the differences between the menus, to which he lied, saying they were the same. We walked out after that, and had a nice dinner in a local , much cheerier pizzeria for half the price!

Talor: I have found that oftentimes the trying moments happen for a reason and almost always something good comes out of it...

Moment 1: After over an hour of walking around in the rain searching for accommodations, we grew increasing frustrated and were cursing the town. Then we settled on the Hotel Respotero, where we had one of the most comfortable beds for a great night's sleep.

Moment 2: Returning from the hot springs of Obrajes, we boarded the last micro (mini-van) returning to Oruro. We stuffed ourselves into the only seat available that was large enough for a school child, smiling at the 15 others already crammed into a car with a maximum capacity of 8. But then the 40-minute ride passed really quickly because we had fun chatting with the young and energetic Rose from La Paz. We spoke in three different languages (Spanish, English and Korean!), took photos of each other and exchanged emails to stay in touch.

Moment 3: Finding dinner that night was quite the chore... we passed on the chi-chi restaurant Erik talked about then proceeded to look up two others that were either not there anymore or were closed. Hungry and tired, we settled on the Salteneria La Casona, which turned out to be a warm and hospitable place that served up a huge chicken omelette, both filling and delicious... ahhhh.

After those happy moments, we were ready to board a train to Uyuni...

Photos of Oruro...

Oruro, Bolivia