Hotel Sucre Oruro

wer scho mal zboliviu isch xi und niid zoruro isch xi het leid eine verpasst.

zhostal san juan de dios isch absolut zempfaehlo, aebufalls isst mu kehrig guet im restaurante quadalquivir und dstadt saelber isch en oiguweida.

im aerescht: e tag laenger haetti wers da niid uesghalto. zhostal isch unner allom zuemuetbaro xi und vam aessu isch nisch nu jetzo, 3 taeg schpaeter, niid guet (apa epis unxunds verwitscht). dstadt isch haesslich und zxeh giz gar nix.

... old colonial town, buy some handicrafts (not me, though I did bail on the shopping in favour of a haircut), and finally, rendezvous with the larger group at Alexander´s Coffee for a stellar dessert.

We got some excellent photos of the old city, which is beautiful in a decayed glory kind of way. The streets are filled with people and vendors selling anything you could imagine. It is an excellent place for a walking adventure.

Having regrouped ...

... just started the day and hearing the fan on the Buell kick in like it should, for the first time in a long time, was a real pleasure.

We found the migrations office in downtown La Paz and after a little argument with the police who would not let us park in front of the office - I brought the passports in and had to pay a $75 fine for crossing the border where the government abandoned its offices. The $75 ...

... we made the best of it.

We managed to hit up two anthropological museums and a mining museum, all of which were fascinating. The first museum was the archeology and folklore museum, which housed ancient mummies and skeletons as well as modern masks and costumes from Carnaval. I found the deformed skulls particularly interesting. The Paracas people, a pre-incan culture which lived in Peru, used to bind the skulls of their infants and turn them into cone-heads. It is also ...

... the inhabitants lived more in towns and villages rather than the huts scattered everywhere as previously. There was still the odd hut and some cattle, llamas, sheep and goats, but not as many!
A lot of the time the road is very straight with some undulations and bends now and again just to wake you up.
While it does at first glance appear to be all the same, over time you do notice subtle changes in the soil and fauna.

On these long boring ...

We went to the bus station at La Paz and got on a random bus to Oruro 3 hours south from where we could catch the train to Uyuni the next day. We lucked out and got a really nice bus, Naser buses, which cost the same as all the others. When we got to Oruro the road into town was blocked by rocks and junk, a manmade barricade. The bus turned round and took us a different way into the bus station from where we walked towards town and found the Hostal Floryda and enquired about ...

Made it in to Uyuni at 22:30 along with a load of stupid brazilian kids who were intent on getting in the way and ******* everyone off. The train journey was amazing with many picture perfect moments. Met a bloke called Adam who was travelling alone so joined us for the weekend. Walked up to the hotel we hoped to stay in but it was full so we were shown to a hostel that was pretty basic but comfortable enough.

... into my daypack for my non-existent camera. But just past the halfway point of my trip I am rested and raring to go. So I have taken a 3 hour bus trip to Oruru and have jst purchased an overnight train ticket to Tupiza, Bolivia. This is a jump-off point for trips to the largest salt lakes in the world.

... on the challenge of getting to Cochabamba, where steph was, without the help of a travel partenter. However, and this is the thing I LOVE about Canadians, when getting off the plane in La Paz I met two Canadian guys who decided to take me under thier wing for the day that I was to be on my own. The three of us and this Isralie girl we also adopted for the day spent a wonderful day exploring the witches markets of La Paz where you can buy all sorts of potions and spells for ...

... by bus. If your bus says it leaves La Paz at 1:30.....it actually won't leave city limits until about 2 or 2:30...overall expect about 3.5-4 hrs to get to Oruri. Which, btw, comes out of nowhere with strange metal sculptures as you enter the city depicting the mine and train history as well as the home of the Diablado...Bolivia's biggest Carnival site. Which is ...