Bumbling around in Bolivia – The Tales of Two Travelling Turtles

Bumbling around in Bolivia

Where are we going?

For two experienced travellers, the following tale is a little embarrassing.

One of Carsten’s virtues (and he has many, believe me) is that he is very well organised. This extends to his travel arrangements. So, while we were in San Pedro de Atacama, he wanted to make sure we had secured our ongoing post-safari bus ticket out of Uyuni to the border town of Villazon. Much internet searching revealed that there was only one bus that plied the route, and it left Uyuni at 6am. Carsten bought us tickets for the day after the safari, and even persuaded the hotel staff to go find their printer in the stock room, plug it in and print out our tickets for us.

I, by contrast, was adopting the laid-back traveller approach. “Don’t be silly. This really isn’t internet territory here. There are almost certainly more bus companies, only they don’t have websites. What’s more, there will be loads of minibuses I’m sure.” Whatever, Carsten was much happier in the knowledge that we had places reserved out of Uyuni.

However, neither of us really wanted to take that bus. For me, 6 am was a ridiculously early start, and Carsten didn’t want to stay overnight in Uyuni if possible because he was still haunted by his last visit to the town, when he was stranded outside a closed hotel at 4 am in sub-zero temperatures with nowhere to go. As the safari ended at midday, what we really wanted was to make headway towards Villazon that afternoon, and stay overnight in Tupiza, 3½ hours away.

Sure enough, there are lots of minibuses that ply the Uyuni Tupiza route (“Told you so, Carsten!”). So after lunch we said farewell to Eleazar and the Landcruiser that had brought us so comfortably from San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni, and piled into a packed “rapidito”, as they call them. Carsten was installed next to the driver, they started chatting, and we were off. I was feeling very smug. 15-love.

About half an hour out of town, in the middle of nowhere desert, the minivan started to splutter and cough. We pulled over, the driver got out, opened the bonnet and spent a while fiddling. It was clear that this minibus was not going to get us another three hours down the road. Carsten looked at me. 15-all.

After some telephone calls, a fresh minibus arrived from Uyuni and we were on our way again. We found a nice hotel in Tupiza, and resolved to claim our Villazon bus seats by boarding the bus when it arrived at the Tupiza bus station the next morning. Although the lady in the Auto transportes Tupiza ticket office had never come across anybody who had booked a seat on the internet, she inspected our San Pedro hotel printouts meticulously and eventually wrote out a couple of “proper” tickets. The bus, she told us, would arrive at 10.30.

We waited an hour in the bus station, during which time a rapidito heading to Villazon departed. 30-15.

At 10.30 on the nose, a Auto transportes Tupiza coach pulled into the station. We loaded our bags in the hold, and got onto the bus with everyone else. Amazing, I thought. This double-decker is very comfortable, and the buses actually run on time in Bolivia! Carsten, being extremely organised, got out his phone and looked at his Google maps.

We were barely five minutes into our journey when Carsten looked worried.

“Chris, we are going the wrong way.”
“What do you mean? Relax, he’s probably heading out to a ring road or something.”

Silence. A bit later…

“No. Chris, we are definitely going the wrong way.”

Looking at his phone, it was clear. There is only one road going through Tupiza, and we were going out of town the wrong way. I went up to the driver.

“This IS the Villazon bus, isn’t it?”
“No. This is the Uyuni bus.”
“WHAT??”

Ahead of us lay 3½ hours of desert road, taking us back to the very place we had been so keen to leave the day before. I thought fast.

“Stop! Please pull over and give us our bags out of the hold.”

As I looked at the road ahead, a Auto transportes Tupiza bus with a big Villazon sign in the windscreen zoomed past in the opposite direction. So much for our internet tickets and Carsten’s organisation. However, also thanks to Carsten’s organisation, we were still only in the outskirts of town. So we got out, found a couple of tuk-tuks to take us back to the bus station, and having missed the one and only bus, got a rapidito to Villazon.

So what’s the score now? 30-all? I don’t know. But what’s for sure, is that neither of us deserve to be in any traveller grand slam championships!

by Chris