Bloody Bolivian Blockades
Trip Start
Oct 05, 2007
1
78
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Trip End
Oct 04, 2008
Cochabamba,
Bolivia
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Lukily we managed to get a connecting bus to La Paz and we patted each other on the back for being so ingenious...well at least for kathryn being so ingenious!
We were sat right at the front of the bus and thus probably spotted the burning blockade on the only bridge out of town before are rahter unobservent driver! So we turned around - turns out the driver want´much good at reversing either! Anyway so we drove through a few trees and found oursselves contemplating driving over the river bed - which was pitted with holes- probably from preveious blockades!
Bus driver was a bit of a wimp and chickened out of that one.... a 603 point turn later and we were heading back through the trees to the main road where we sat for quite a while......waiting......for a digger as it turned out, HOORAY....10 minutes later we had succesded iun turning round once more and were back in front of the blockade where there were now a few confused looking policemen! Evetually the digger that dissapeared, reappeared and cleared the bridge and across we went, only to dfind another blockade a few meters on! The digger had dissapeared again and the police came and went and stood around a lot doing sweet fa!
Having sat there for a few hours and on discovering that hte blockade over the bridge had been reformed so we were trapped - I think the digger man was playing both sides of the field! Anyway having established all this our bus driver decided perhaps he could manage to go off roading round the blockade like all the 10 ton trucks before us! So all the passengers were thrown off and had to walk over the blockaed and meet the bus the other side....which was suprisingly successful! We even did the Hello mum i´m on the telly bit as we got back on the bus - wierdly the camera crew didnt´want to interview the gringoes though!!
Back on the bus we completed the painstakingly slow journey to Le Paz, at one point passing through snow, and finally descended into the extraordinary cith of Le Paz!
