The disused railway into Argentina

I was quite pleased to be leaving Argentina: apart from the steak (when you don't get the “gringo cut”) and, of course, Iguazu Falls, I hadn't really enjoyed my time there. Some things about the culture just grated with me: it seems more militarised and less laid-back that its neighbours, and we had spent far more money than we had planned to. That's not to say I wouldn't go back to Argentina: apart from the falls, we didn't have time to do any of the things I would really have liked to, such as visit Patagonia and the lake district, and spend some time in the Andes. Also, I would like to spend some more time in Buenos Aires, which only scratched the surface of. I think we did spend too much time in towns, though, and apart from Bs As they weren't really worth it.

Finally, we got to the border, and it looked like we would still have enough time to catch the train, although it still depended on customs and finding the train station. At first our hearts sank, because the queue for customs was huge; it looked like it would take at least two hours but, just to be sure, we decided to walk up to the front in case we were missing something. Thankfully, there was another window which officials were waving us towards. At first I felt a bit embarrassed, believing that the gringos got their own special fast track window, but then I noticed that our window said entrada over it, whereas the one with the huge queue said salida. Seems like a lot of people want to leave Bolivia for Argentina, or else it's just very slow and complicated to do so. Next to our window was a poster which said vota si! Evo, which is not the partisan kind of material I would expect to see at a border post.

Ten minutes later out passports were stamped, I had realised that we had gained and hour due to the time difference, and I had spotted a sign saying that the train leaves at 3.30pm, not 2pm as we had been told. Suddenly we had loads of extra time, but Joanne still wanted to hurry because she had read that you need to buy tickets well in advance. We had been told that there were no ATMs are the border, so we drawn some extra Argentine Pesos to change; ominously, in return for the 370 Argentine Pesos I handed over at the cambio, I received 666 Bolivianos.

We marched along the main road in Villazon, with our big bags, asking people where the train station was: invariably they answered cuatro cuadros, mas o menos; we just didn't seem to be getting closer and it was really hard work: the sun was out and Villazon is at about 3500m, well into the altitude sickness zone. We walked past food stalls, loads of places selling a great range of nice warm clothes for very low prices, some pro-Morales graffiti, and finally arrived at the train station. We bought ejecutivo tickets for 51 Bolivianos (about £4.35) then sat down to wait, which is when we realised we were both very hungry. But was there a cafe in station? Was there even a kiosk, selling sandwiches or something? No. All there was, were a couple of stalls outside the station where the women were selling sweets.

Evo seems popular

There was no real food to be bought. I tried a couple of shops across the road, but all they sold to eat were sweets and sugary biscuits. Apart from the Argentinian steak, which you can hardly eat all the time, South American food had been fairly awful: it's almost all junk food. In restaurants, most of what they offer is a bit of meat with some chips. OK, there are some nice Italian restaurants, but on the whole the cuisine is terrible. Now it looked like Bolivia was going to be even worse. Some Argentinians had warned us that the food in Bolivia was awful, and also very likely to make us ill, but I had dismissed this as xenophobia. I was sure we had passed some half-decent looking food stalls and also a stall selling coca tea, which I was becoming convinced I needed for the altitude; apparently coca tea is good for altitude sickness and I was starting to get a bad headache and feel very light-headed.

Evo seems popular

Of course there was no left luggage facility at the station, so I left Joanne with the bags and marched back towards town in search of food and coca tea. The further north in Argentina we got, the poorer and more basic the places had begun to look; also people had started to look much more interesting and a lot darker skinned. Now we were in Bolivia, it was at first sight a far poorer place that Argentina, and almost everyone looked properly Amerindian now: no real Spanish look, and certainly none of the northern European look of Uruguay. I walked and walked, getting out of breath and feeling worse. Eventually, almost all the way back to the border I felt too bad to go on, so I started heading back without having found any food or tea.

About half way back, I saw a sign for a restaurant and decided to ask if they would sell me some food para llegar. The menu was simple: they were selling meat sandwiches from a barbecue outside, so it was no problem to get a takeaway, but when I sat down to wait, the manager told me they didn't sell coca tea. I was surprised, because I thought it was everywhere in Bolivia; after all it had been everywhere in northern Argentina, so I had to make do with a beer, which was surprisingly nice, and a great improvement on the awful Quilmes that dominates the Argentine market. Finally I made it back, panting, to the train station, and presented Joanne with her dodgy sandwich. She had been talking to a Scottish guy who was cycling around South America. He had found the altitude too difficult over the last stretch, though, and had decided to take the next stage by train. Now that would be a great trip!

I had taken so long to get the food that we didn't have to wait much longer for the train. It was very nice and the most luxurious transport we had travelled on for some time. We even had food brought to us in our seats.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 17, 2009 from Villazon, Bolivia
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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