7:32am – Just woke up and we’re packing up and getting ready to leave Sorata for La Paz.
We had another tasty breakfast at our resort’s restaurant and took care of paying for our room. The owner (Johnny) said goodbye to us and wished us well. He was a really nice guy.
The plan for the day was to head back to La Paz, then to Oruro, where we were meeting up with 4 of Ranz’s Peace Corps companions. The 6 of us where then going to take a train to Uyuni where we would start a 4-day tour of the Salar (salt flats).
We ran into New York and Maryland and decided to share a cab with them back to town.
All four of us got onto a van to La Paz (“La Paz! A la Paz!”). It was a pretty cramped van. Ranz and I were in the backseat.
On the road from Sorata to Huarina, the bus kept stopping when people were on the side of the road waiting for a ride, even though there really wasn’t any room. New York and Maryland kept laughing and shaking their heads, not believing that they were letting more people onto the van.
They got off at Huarina, as they were heading to Copacabana.
11:20am – We are on a bus to La Paz. We just dropped of NY and Maryland in Huarina. We had breakfast at Altai Oasis and caught a taxi with NY and MD to Sorata where we immediately jumped on a minivan bus to La Paz.
More observations: 1) The Bolivian music today is sort of like a cross between Billy Joel’s The Downeaster “Alexa” and Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Tearjerker. 2)The napkins here are tiny. They are like ¾ the size of US square napkins. In fact a lot of stuff is smaller. I feel like a giant, or an NBA player. 3) The soccer stadiums are often the nicest places in towns (besides the churches). Kind of like how a college kid has no money to eat but has a sweet stereo system.
One thing Ranz told me about La Paz which I thought was kind of cool was how they control traffic. Because there are a lot of cars trying to get into the city (a city where they are not expressways or 6 lane highways), they limit who can enter the city each day. Based on the number your license plate starts with, you can only enter the city on certain days. For example, if your license plate starts with a 1, you can’t go into the city on Mondays or Tuesdays. Seemed like kind of a neat rule, but like many rules, it’s blatantly disregarded by most.
We made it back to La Paz and got dropped off at the bus terminal. Here we purchased our tickets to Oruro. The bus to Oruro was leaving at 2pm and it was a little before 1pm. We dropped our bags off at the station and walked down the street to get some food. At an ATM we passed, we got some money. We found a fried chicken place for lunch and then headed back to the bus station.
Our seats on the bus were numbers one and two. We were kind of on a second level sitting above the driver with nothing but the windshield in front of us. They showed Commando on the ride (Ranz said they always play combat movies with Van Damme, Jackie Chan, or Arnold), which took just under four hours to get to Oruro.
We were supposed to meet Ranz’s friends at the bus stop in Oruro and join them on a train ride to Uyuni.
6:28pm – We made it to Oruro, but we weren’t able to get train tickets, so we are waiting until 9pm for a bus ride. We are hanging out at a guy named Jarrod’s apartment. We made it to La Paz, ate some chicken, then caught a bus to Oruro at 2pm.
We got off the bus in Oruro and got a taxi to Jarrod’s apartment. A bunch of Peace Corps volunteers were hanging out at this apartment, including the people we would be traveling with. Present were Jarrod, Brandon, Katie, Sydney, Kilo, and Naya. The gang was watching episodes of The Office and was pretty mellow. A bunch of them were sick with diarrhea.
Ranz, Kilo, and I ordered some Chinese takeout (hilarious, I know!). I gave Katie her package which I had been carrying all the way from the US. It was an iPod and a bunch of accessories. Ranz transferred a bunch of songs from his computer onto it.
Ranz and I decided to leave some of our stuff at Jarrod’s apartment and grab it on our way back through on Thursday. That way we each would only need to take one bag on our trip.
Ranz and I told everyone they could call us Ranz and Coleman. They called me Coleman, but they also started calling me Ben #1 because I was out the door and ready to leave before Ranz.
The 6 of us who were going to the salt flats (myself, Ranz, Kilo, Katie, Sydney, and Naya) piled into a single taxi and rode to the bus depot.
We got on the bus with little time to spare, especially since a couple of the girls had to run to the bathroom right before the bus left.
This was what I consider a regular bus (Greyhound style), except the overhead reading lights and the heat didn’t work.
10:58pm – We are sitting in a bus stopped for a bathroom break. We got on the bus at 9pm. It is me, Ranz, Sydney, Naya, Katie, and Kilo.
When we stopped I put on all the layers of clothes that I had, which wasn’t much since most of it was in a bag under the bus. Ranz was kind enough to share one of his ear buds with me while we tried to sleep on what proved to be an intolerably bumpy ride.
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