La Paz to San Pedro in 27 hours

I have mentioned before in these pages that it is better to be lucky than smart. This journey illustrated the maxim several times, particularly in escaping from the proper consequences of some pretty poor decisions.

LaPaz is not a nasty city and the hostel was pleasant, but I´m not a big city fan and I´d done the things I wanted to do in La Paz so it was time to move on.

There is a famous 3-day tour between Uyuni in Bolivia and San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Talking to other travellers had convinced me that the better way to enjoy this tour was to start at the Chilean end, so off to San Pedro I will go!

There are no direct connections. Long discussion with a travel agent ruled out flying on the grounds of both cost and convenience. Getting to Uyuni by bus was either expensive or uncomfortable but certain. Getting from there to San Pedro is possible by very cold and infrequent trains, and in theory via a jeep that returns 3-day tourers to their point of origin. So I bought a bus ticket to Uyuni and trusted that something would turn up for the final stage of the journey.

I had elected for a mid-range fare in something between a local and a luxury bus. It included a pick-up from the hostel, which persuaded me that this was only a tiny bit less than luxury class. Foolish optimist that I am.

The 4:00pm pick up went very smoothly, particularly by Bolivian standards. A taxi arrived with an English-speaking host to take me to the bus station, which was only round the corner from the hostel anyway. The guide handed me a ticket to Oruro and explained that I was to pick up an onward ticket there from a company called Trans Azul. He made sure that I paid my departure tax (most bus stations in Peru and Bolivia suffer from this pestilence) and showed me the platform at which the bus was waiting. I could go to it now or later. I understood him to say that it started loading at 4:30, which made sense of the travel agent´s itinerary. This stated that the bus departed at 5:00pm. The host, his job done, vanished into the streets of La Paz.

I used up a few minutes and my last coins to buy bananas for the overnight journey and sat in the waiting area. This, I thought was more pleasant than sitting in a waiting bus. Poor decision no.1.

At 4:40 I sauntered out to find the bus bay empty. My bus was scheduled to depart at 4:30. It had pulled back and was just moving off. "Oruro?" I shouted at the driver, waving my ticket as well as I could with luggage in each hand. This marvellous individual nodded, opened the door and admitted me. Stroke of luck no.1.

The lower level of this bus was freight and luggage (a common design) so I had to struggle up the stairs to the passenger section with my day pack in one hand and the big pack in the other. My ticket said seat no.9, which proved to be a window seat. A stern lady sat in the aisle seat and looked at me disapprovingly. P.G. Wodehouse would have confidently described her as an aunt.

Looking around with a hunted expression I saw that there was a pair of unoccupied seats at the front. These offered ample space for both me and the pack that should have been tidily stowed in the baggage compartment. The bus had already departed so there would be no more passengers. Stroke of luck no.2, I thought.

I enjoyed a panoramic view as the bus climbed the steep motorway towards La Alta. "The High One" is a city on the altiplano plateau that clusters round the lip of La Paz´s valley. It´s a very odd arrangement. La Paz was effectively built in a hole in the plateau. There must be an exit, because water flows into the valley, but I never explored the South of La Paz so I don´t know what it looks like. ALL traffic approaches La Paz via El Alto. The airport is there, my bus from Cocabana in the North arrived first in El Alto and now my bus to Oruro in the South was passing micros as it followed the only exit road.

El Alto, I discovered, does not have a purpose built bus station, or else my bus chose not to use it. A narrow street was crowded with big buses, ticket offices and barkers loadly informing the world that here was a bus to Oruro. The sensible thing would have been to take this opportunity to get my big pack stowed in the luggage compartment, but this was not a day for sense. I sat tight in my premium seat until the bus finally moved off. Unfortunately the last person to board came and claimed one of the two seats I was occupying. He didn´t like the space my pack occupied and a ticket check ensued. Damn. I had to go to my allocated seat next to the aunt. The bus was now moving again so my pack ended up on the aisle floor. I was not popular with the Bolivanos who boarded or left the bus en route to Oruro.

It was about 8pm when the bus emptied just outside Oruro´s Terminal de Buses. There would be no messing about here. I marched straight to Trans Azul, who appeared to have no knowledge of the booking. However, they issued a ticket and allocated a seat. A helpful man took me to the bus and saw my pack loaded and the luggage receipt issued. "What time does the bus leave?" "9 o´clock." Good. I had plenty of time to go to the loo and grab a sandwich.

Except that at 8:40 the bus wasn´t there. I swear it had been replaced by one form another company. Panic was not far away. Other passengers confidently bustled to and fro. A lady looked like a company official. "Where is the Uyuni bus?" I asked as calmly as I could. She pointed unconcernedly five buses along. Yes, it has a card in the front with its destination.

My sense of direction is normally excellent. Could I have misremembered the bay my bus was parked in? I climbed aboard and claimed my seat. No-one disputed it so it must be the correct bus? My mind was a whirl of possibilities. What I didn´t do was to peek in the luggage compartment to confirm that my pack was also on this bus. But my luck held - it was there in Uyuni.

The road thus far had been sealed. Travellers who had previously been in southern Bolivia had warned that the roads beyond Oruro were particularly bad. There was a terrible stretch just outside Oruro but then we bowled along nicely. The driver put a pleasant music tape on to ease us into sleep. This could be OK.

But I couldn´t get comfortable. The seats were too close together and one knee was jammed against the seat in front however I twisted myself. This wasn´t going to do my back any good. Sadly, this prophecy has indeed come true. I looked around and horrors, there was no toilet on this bus. The travel agent lied to me!

At the time I felt that I had been fobbed off with a local bus at tourist bus prices, but later I realised that (1) the bus was heated; and (2) the seats reclined. I guess this was an intermediate level of comfort. If only Bolivians were not so short.

At 10:30 we drew up in an anonymous pueblo and the motor coughed to a silence. The driver openend the door to the passenger section and made a brief announcement. It contained the magic word, "baño". The passengers surged off. The only ones left were parents with toddlers sleeping across their laps.

I wasn´t in need of a toilet, but better take the opportunity while it´s there. Only it wasn´t. There was a confectionary stall and a couple of cafes open for the pasing bus trade but no baño publico. The Bolivians response was to use the walls and gutters. When in Rome ...

The rest of the journey fully lived up to the reports of dreadful roads. I definitely heard the wheels churning through water once and suspected several other rivers were forded. The driver clearly held the view that the torture would be minimised by going as fast as possible over the corrugations but amazingly some hardy individuals did sleep and emit contented snores.

There were several stops, but I could not guess why. Then at 2am the bus pulled up again and a chatty, smiling lady almost bounced into the passenger section, bowler hat askew, and slung her bundle in the aisle. We picked up at least two more passengers after this.

The cheap buses direct from La Paz to Uyuni take 12 hours. I had spent at least an hour in Oruro so I estimated that we would reach Uyuni between 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning. Not a good time to arrive but not the worst. So when the bus stopped at about quarter to four I was muzzily interested that so many people were getting off. The toddlers protested at being woken and stuffed into multiple layers of clothing against the altiplano night cold.

The conductor made an annoucement that I didn´t understand but it crept into my brain that the engine had been turned off and the bus was not moving. "Where are we?" "Uyuni." That´s my stop. I struggled awake and lurched off to claim my pack. What to do in Uyuni at 4am? My brian, working at the speed of a tectonic plate, realised that there were quite a few passengers still on board in the warmth of the bus. That announcement included "las siete", which means 7 o´clock. What he must have said was that passengers could remain on the bus until 7am.

Communicating mainly by signs I re-entered the bus and dozed with the others until seven.

At chucking-off time I had a plan. I would find the bus station, which was the best chance of a hot drink and around which, I had been promised, travel agencies clustered.

This was not an immediately successful plan. No street vendors were yet abroad. One lady, recognising me as a foreigner, tried to sell me a tour of the salt desert. I explained that I wished to go directly to San Pedro and take the tour in the other direction. She understood, which means my Spanish must be improving, told me it was only possile through Colgate Tours on Wednesdays and tried again to sell me a tour.

My guide book has a map of Uyuni, but I didn´t really need it. It´s not a large town and I had promenaded the downtown streets by 7:20. Other early-rising optimists offered me salt desert tours and we had a range of conversations along similar lines. By 8 o´clock some of them had offices open and they showed me their lovely tours on illustrated maps. In one of the offices another tourist had a different, but equally firmly held and non-standard objective. He told me that the jeeps from San Pedro arrived in town about 3pm each day. Fine, I would wait until 3pm and approach some directly. I was sure a deal could be done.

By now it had become clear that there were three agencies that sold direct journeys to San Pedro and I had approximate directions to two of the offices. Cordillera Tours were closed but Colque (it sounds a bit like Colgate) was open. Could they offer a passage? Yes. Today? Yes. When? At 9 o´clock, i.e. in 5 minutes. It´s better to be lucky than smart. I´ll take it.

I just had time to buy a bottle of water before packs were being loaded onto a roof rack. The vehicles that ply between Uyuni and San Pedro are described as jeeps, but they are actually Toyota 4x4 Land Cruisers. They work hard. There are no paved roads over the puna. These are definitely not Remuera tractors.

My companions were Manuel and 4 young ladies, all from Barcelona. Between Manuel´s English and my Spanish we communicated well enough, though I found the Spanish of Spain hard to follow sometimes. Our care was entrusted to Santiago, a mature and conservative driver. This was a bonus because I had heard dreadful tales of drunken jeep drivers. And the Spaniards added another one. They had done the 3-day tour in a 3-jeep group and one driver had run out of fuel because he drank so much of the petrol money.

ETA in San Pedro was two o´clock but Santiago drove at a relaxed pace. That was OK. The scenery was stunning. Santiago even stopped couple of times so I could take photos. The tourists swapped sweets and agreed to have a shared lunch at a place where we could have a swim. After my night journey it was not surprising that I nodded off for a while.

Two o´clock came and it was still an hour to the lunch spot "or a little more". Then a jeep coming the other way flagged us down. The drivers had a very long conversation. The upshot was that all the tourists and their luggage were transferred from one jeep to the other. All I could understand in Santiago´s explanation was the frequent references to the boss of Colque Tours. Our new driver turned his vehicle around and headed South. He was a taciturn individual, muttered in a manner I could not understand and I never did get his name.

He grudgingly allowed us 20 minutes for a very late lunch and no swim in the hot pool. I shall have to enjoy that on my 3-day tour. At five o´clock we were near the border and we stopped at a small collection of buildings. The driver disappeared into one of them. A woman made a few sorties to discard ashes and take kindling into the house. Smoke appeared from the chimney. We began to get anxious. The border was notorious for its unreliable hours of operation.

Then another jeep puleed up and almost immediately afterwards a minibus arrived from San Pedro. Everyone in the two jeeps now transferred to the minibus and we set off for the border. The Bolivians have a little border post in which exit formalities were conducted. The officer collected our 15 bolivanos and stamped the passports presented without bothering to check that what I tendered was in indeed my passport.

A modest sign indicated that we were entering Chile, but there was no welcoming customs post. The minibus ploughed through the dust and after 10 minutes climbed thankfully onto a sealed road. The Chileans conduct border formalities in the comfort of San Pedro, not a shack in the desert. Entry forms were passed round, including a declaration that we were not bringing fruit with us or other risks to an agricultural economy. Just like home!

At the border a large sample of luggage was searched and I was quizzed about my potential supplies of coca leaves. I was actually a bit nervous because I had happily signed off a clean declaration and was now unsure. I had eaten all the fresh fruit on the journey and I was happy that the popcorn was cooked and therefore no threat. But what about the few remaining brazil nuts from the jungle? The lady chose to search my big pack so I did not have to display my snacks and I was admitted to Chile.

It was now well after dark. A journey that was sold as 5 hours had taken 10 by the time I secured the last bunk in the hostel. And it was 27 hours since the pick-up from the hostel in La Paz.

I am happy to report that the marathon was worth it. San Pedro is a quiet, pleasant town, with several fascinating places nearby to visit. The hostel is very good, except for the showers but what do you expect? Eating out is much more expensive than in Peru or Bolivia, but Chile is a more developed economy and after the nourishing but unremakable dishes of the past 7 weeks the food is fantastic! There are trained chefs at work here.

Tomorrow I set off early on my tour back to Uyuni. Unless I come back here this evening, it may be some time before I next visit an Interet cafe.