Bolivian Adventure: the wheels on the bus go..
Trip Start
May 18, 2007
1
25
43
Trip End
Jul 28, 2007
Quimsa Cruz,
Bolivia
Monday, July 16, 2007
Our little group left La Paz, after acclimatizing on Isla del Sol and in the Lake Titicaca region, ready for, and expecting, a six hour bus ride (ok - possibly seven), based once again on what the itinerary said, and also on what Kate was telling us. We formed a little caravan - the bus in front, with the clients, guides, and five porters - followed by Juan's two 4X4 Toyota Land-Cruisers, transporting the rest of the porters, food, and (we assumed) the tents and other camping necessities.
Getting out of La Paz proved to be relatively straight-forward -- the major road up to El Alto is a nice highway comparable with most Canadian or American urban highways - except all uphill, of course...
Once out of the city, things were rolling pretty well. We made a stop at a "rest area" complete with a very decent little convenience store. Finding a gas station with available
diesel fuel proved more difficult.
01 - Steep valley, narrow road
For some reason, there was either a shortage of fuel, or a shortage of people willing to open up their gas stations... The price of diesel? 3.7 Bolivianos per litre, or about US$0.45 --- highly subsidized by the Bolivian government.
Getting back on the road after our bio-break and refueling stops, we did come across something that left most of us speechless, at least for a few minutes... We could see up ahead that there was *something* in the middle of the road, and there was a police vehicle parked nearby. As we got closer, it became obvious that the "thing" was actually a dead body - someone had just been hit, and was lying in the middle of the highway, the body only partially covered. Two other people, clearly in shock, were sitting by the side of the road, waiting. No ambulance, no road block, no significant police presence.... Our bus drove by, barely slowing down. Those of us on the left side of the bus had time to gasp, after Ro, sitting in the front seat, gave the signal by shouting something like, "That's not the road kill we normally see back home! That's a dead body!".
The journey continued, and we put this behind us - both figuratively and literally - as we made progress towards the mountains. The 4X4's took the lead, with the goal of arriving to our campsite ahead of the bus for the porters to set up camp for us clients (yes, that's how organized adventure travel works...). By the time we stopped for lunch, in some non-descript village whose name I do not remember, we were entering steeper terrain, and the landscape was becoming more dramatic, and more unforgiving.
A few kilometers later, the asphalt ended, replaced by a bumpy gravel and dirt road.
02 - Not a flattering picture, but I was there...
It was, might I add, very narrow, with a sheer cliff on the left-hand side that made quite an impression on several of our passengers. I found the whole thing amusing - though I kept composing the CNN and newspaper headlines in my head: "A bus full of tourists plunges down a deep canyon in rural Bolivia, killing all passengers on board...". That's CNN... The papers would have said something like, "Tourist bus takes fatal plunge in Bolivia", before describing some horrendous scene where no one could possibly come out alive.But - in our case, no problem! Oh, I forget - there was a moment where we could see, from a few kilometers ahead, a big Volvo dump truck making its way towards us. It would appear and disappear with every curve in the road, slowly getting closer. How in the world would this truck, and our bus, share the narrow road?
Eventually, the issue came to a head. There it was, this big red truck, a mere twenty feet in front of us. Both vehicles came to a halt. Some of our group decided to get off the bus, "just in case" -- if I remember correctly, Jeff was the first off the bus... :-)
Don Adolfo kept insisting that there was no problem - clearly, he'd faced this situation before, probably many many times. He parked the bus VERY close to the edge, on the left side of the road, then got off the bus and directed the driver of the truck, who drove his vehicle into the narrow gap between the bus and the rock face rising on our right. Had we been asked to give odds on the successful outcome of this venture, I would have bet on at least a good scrape on the bus, from the truck trying to fit in too-narrow a space.
03 - Dramatic landscape
But I would have been wrong!The whole thing was over in a couple of minutes, and Don Adolfo got back behind the wheel and kept driving. Anyone who thinks that driving an SUV in the city is an exploit, I've got news for you!
Subsequent encounters with smaller vehicles, such as 4X4 or LandCruisers, proved uneventful - though I was glad I wasn't driving.
We did make another notable stop along the way to watch a few condors soaring in the blue sky. Allow me to sound like a snob and say that this was about the 10th time I'd seen condors (between Chile last year and Peru in the last few weeks), so while I was interested, I wasn't exactly yelling about it, like some of us... Granted, Jeff's cries of "CONDORS!!!" alerted everyone else, and we were able to pull over and take pictures. Nonetheless, he did get an awful lot of compliments, mainly from Judy, Ro, and Kate, for having spotted the condors from a distance.
After a few more hours -- in all, close to 9 hours of bus driving -- we finally drove through the town of Viloco, an ugly mining town wedged within the mountains. Not very friendly-looking, it is not equipped to welcome tourists - another sign that the Quimsa Cruz is not yet really "discovered".
Not long afterward, we finally pulled in by the side of the road, near a nice, flat campsite by a lake. One 4X4 was parked ahead of us - the other one nowhere in sight. Porters were rummaging about, unloading things from the 4X4. However, the tents hadn't been put up yet. After a bit of confusion in the waning sun and increasing cold, it emerged that the tents were, in fact, on top of the BUS. So the whole strategy of sending the 4X4's ahead of us was for naught...
Well... there was only one sensible thing to do: sit in the bus and stay warm until the tents were up. The other - less sensible - thing to do was to stand in the cold, and complain about the whole thing. I'll let you guess who chose this approach.
The porters worked fairly quickly to get the campsite up and organized -- pitching our tents (2 or 3-person, 4-season North Face and Mountain Hardwear tents), along with the mess tent, cook tent and toilet tents (we had 2 that night). The other 4X4 did arrive, more stuff was unloaded, and just around sunset time, we were finally all sorted out.
After changing into warmer clothes, stretching muscles that had been inactive all day, and convening into the mess tent, we had tea and cookies/biscuits, and then dinner.
Funny how that night, we were all happy to start with soup...
I forgot to mention that the Tom's were both feeling very ill that day -- Tom Jr. slept (or tried to sleep) most of the way on the bus, and Tom Sr. was rather pale and quiet. The GI Blues had attacked, leaving them unable to eat or drink much at all, and feeling wretched. It would be a theme that would plague us for a few days...
