261218: Oruro to La Paz

We woke up to a somewhat chilly and damp Oruro.  It had rained heavily the night before and there was still moisture in the air.  Our room, though large, felt cavernous. It had two large windows out to the corridor but for privacy the curtains had to be drawn all the time.  There was small window to the rear that was at the bottom of a shaft, but did let in some natural light.  Neither of us are at ease with these troglodyte arrangements.  The place oozed misery.

Breakfast summed it up.  Breakfast is between 7.30 and 9.30.  So we headed to the dining room.  The light was off when we entered though we could hear noises from the kitchen.   We switched the light on and sat down.  Still noises from the kitchen but no one came.  So we did that British thing of coughing in the hope that someone might hear. Nothing.  So the next part of the strategy was to raise our voices a little.  Given the small kitchen was only three metres away, it didn't work.  Finally we resorted to clinking the glasses together in the hope of getting some attention.  We were just on the brink of making the radical move to pop our heads round the kitchen door when a chap who had been mopping the corridor came in, went to the kitchen and said something.

He came out and asked what we wanted - offering pan tostado. Kevin asked for huevos revueltos - scrambled eggs.  Joan asked for toast.  To drink we order hot water with a little cold milk for Kevin's tea and café con leche for Joan.

The lass from the kitchen finally emerged with Kevin's eggs,served with two very small squares of toasted bread and a tea spoon.  Joan got the same bread and a smear of spread and jam.  The lass looked shocked when we asked for a knife and fork to eat the eggs with.  Next came the hot water for Kevin and the café con leche.  We have this tradition of bringing our own mugs on holiday. Kevin likes a big mug of tea to start the day so he has brought a Santa mug that holds about a pint of tea.  Joan has a normal size mug with a Siamese cat that looks like Serafina dressed in Christmas garb - tasteful!  When the lass poured the café con leche, she filled it half way and disappeared.  Every now and again she looked to see if we had gone (or that's what it felt like).  There would be no second cup of tea or coffee here.  It was all a bit begrudging.  Let us get it clear, we're not knocking Bolivia.  Poor service happens everywhere and we have had some excellent service here.  Back home, a dodgy hotel in Barrow-in-Furness springs to mind where the landlady was shocked that Joan's work colleagues might even want breakfast.  Or a hotel in Motherwell that locked the door at 10.30 pm whilst Joan's work colleagues were still out in town.

So we packed our bags and we went to explain to the manager that we would be leaving early.  Credit to him, he only charged us for two nights out of the four.  We hailed a cab who drove us - rather impatiently - to the Nuevo Terminal.  Compared to Uyuni, the organisation here was unfathomable.  He told us the bus to La Paz leaves from a certain corner outside the depot and pointed to a double decker slowly driving off.  We thought we had missed it, but he called to a woman selling tickets, and she hassled us along, grabbed our cases and took the fifty Bolivianos fare from Joan's open purse.  (Joan was paying the taxista)  A lad in the luggage compartment asked us where we were getting off, took our cases and ushered us to get on board the slowly moving bus. We sat down and were immediately told we were in the wrong seats and to sit at the back.  The numbers on our tickets didn't seem to correspond to those on our tickets but after that no one challenged us.  That's it now, we're off, we thought.  Wrong, for about another quarter of an hour the bus crawled along, boarding more and more passengers.  Those on last sat on the stairs, in the aisle or in the driver's cab.

The outskirts of Oruro were pretty depressing with midden heaps all along the main road where people dump rubbish and dogs scavenge. It was the same in Potosi but noticeably less so in Sucre.  Amongst the heaps and further out there were hundreds of small one room houses, slightly smaller than a UK standard garage, that were half built or sometimes inhabited.  There was nothing around them, no walls or infrastructure.  The poverty of this place was very much there to see.

The bus finally picked up speed and headed the three and a half hours journey to La Paz.  The scenery was markedly more green, with hills on either side.  Occasionally in a town the bus would pull up, the luggage lad would push out a few boxes and bags for those who had got off and the bus would set off again with the lad running to jump back on board.

There were one or to hairy moments.  Our driver tried to overtake another coach, whose driver was on a mobile, and came within inches of hitting each other.  The other driver then aggressively undertook, still on mobile.  Bear in  mind this was a single carriageway road with other traffic coming in the other direction.  Even some of the other passengers woke up.  In fact, this jousting between the two coaches was repeated, particularly when we reached the outskirts of El Alto, the township attached to La Paz.

The outskirts of El Alto are a scrubby place - dusty, muddy, half built, with unlikely tea parties taking place by the side of the road.  One cuadra would be selling tyres, another wood, another breeze blocks another furniture. More and more people disembarked.  One woman had eight boxes worth of luggage all about the size of a small washing machine.

Overhead we saw the cable car between El Alto and La Paz.

Then the buildings cleared and there was the first view of La Paz, in a deep ravine.  Houses perched precariously on top of each other from the bottom to the top.  The distance in height between El Alto and the centre of La Paz is 500 metres.

Heading steadily down hill, the bus finally reached the bus terminal, where the usual chaos ensued.  The guidebook says to be careful here and only get in taxis with a sign on top and not the informal taxis that have a piece of paper in their window.  For the main part we headed down the main street, Avenida 6 de Agosto, passing government ministries and, more importantly, the Casa de Hospuedes John Wesley.  This is the hotel where the opening shots of the Lalala video were filmed.  To be honest, it had crossed Joan's mind to book us in there, but, just for once, good sense prevailed.

Our apartment is in Sopocachi, a more affluent part of the city where all the high rises are.  We had some problem locating the particular block we were it, partly because there was no easily visible sign to say what our tower block was called.  We tried calling Camila who is our host and finally made contact. She explained where the block was to the taxi driver and we finally found it - its name hidden by some topiary.  Joan said to Kevin - this cab is going to be expensive!  The driver must have understood some English, turned round straight away and said 40 Bolivianos - so that another £4.50 blown.

The flat itself is light and airy with a kitchen cum living area, separate bedroom and bathroom.  The area around has lots of restaurants and there is even an open veggie café directly opposite.  We went to an unusually well-stocked supermarket around the corner.  There are also plenty of armed policemen about.

We're putting our dodgy stomach down to eating food contaminated with meat and poor hygiene.  It was good to sit down and have a home cooked meal which bore no relation to pizza whatsoever!

One final thing.  All our guidebooks have said about how you have to take time to adapt to the altitude when you first arrive in La Paz.  As  we have actually come down from a maximum of 5000 metres, and as Sopocachi is lower than the city centre, we immediately noticed we could breathe easily - probably the first time since arriving in the country.