CardboardBed - Blogabond

We left Copacabana and headed for Oruro . The journey was not without incident - first our back tyre appeared to burst and our driver appeared to ignore it. The rest of us struggled to match his indifference and we sweated along mountain roads uncomfortably. When we miraculously arrived at the lake crossing, we were told that it was too choppy and we would have to wait because there were fears that our coach would topple off the feeble raft. It was partly a blessing, as our driver decided he might aswell fix the tyre while we were waiting. It hadn´t actually burst but the thing had completely fallen apart; the flapping we had heard was half of the grip coming off and the bald tyre would not have lasted much longer.

We eventually were permitted to cross and made it to La Paz where we got a bus to Oruro. I hoped it would be a nice, uneventful journey but no… A young boy selling biscuits got on (which is not unusual) and, in what I can only assume was a desperate marketing ploy, started singing loudly (which is). And I use the word “singing” loosely. It was so loud not even my headphones could block out the sound. I suppose the idea was to subject the helpless passengers to ear shattering renditions until someone bought something just to shut him up. Eventually, it seemed that someone had.

Oruro is a busy, modern market town with good street food and a distinct lack of gringos. The latter was underlined when, after a meal, our waitress start taking photos of us on her camera phone. We were planning on getting a train to Ururo but decided that a stop at Potosi along the way would be worthwhile. After another bus, from which we watched the amazing changing hazy layers of another desert sunset, we were there – checking into the kind of hotel room you normally only see in the movies when someone is on the run. Breakfast wasn’t included but we did find some chicken bones in the corner. Still, a bed is a bed, even when it is creakier than an old people’s home and partly constructed out of flattened cardboard boxes.

written by

steve_stamp on July 25, 2009 from Oruro, Bolivia

from the travel blog: The art of being lost

tagged Tyre, Indifference, SingingBiscuitBoy, Oruro and CardboardBed

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On the Road (and a bit on the lake)

Oruro, Bolivia

Heading South?