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Lots more travelling. Do you have your atlas handy?
La Paz to Oruro by bus
Oruro to Uyuni by train
3 days on a 4X4 jeep tour of the area south of Uyuni to see the Salt Lakes.
Uyuni to Villazon by train. - This 9 hour journey took 16.
Villazon to Salta by 2 buses.
And at last, a non moving bed and proper food!
With all this transport, perhaps it is a good time to menition some of the more recent events on the road.
During our journey back from Machu Picchu the rain gods twice conspired against us. Once causing a landslide with boulders the size of a smart car to cover the road ahead of our mini bus. Also during the second stage of the journey from Agua Calientes to Cusco. You travel by train along the Rio Urabamba river with sensational views of the canyon - on that day the heavy rain fall had created an angry, swollen, brown humping river. Within 10 km of a station the 2 hour journey was soon to become 3 as we were stopped literally ´ín our tracks´ by a fallen tree, right across the line. The roots had been loosened by the rain fall and the wind caused the collapse. As we took pictures from the front window we imagined the scene of 2 lumberjacks with a push pull saw. It could take hours! Passengers were forbidden to leave the train, but were entertained by the local villagers. Children chasing down snacks and sweets thrown out of the windows by the travellers, 2 randy dogs, with as usual, 1 willing and the other not, and 2 escaped cows, running amuck in the dirt street. A cheer then rippled through the carriages to greet a man on a bike, slowly peddleing up the line of the train. Our saviour. He wobbled a little, with only one hand one the handle bars. His other steadied a chain saw, slung over this right shoulder.
Our relationship with landslides was not yet over. The night train from Uyuni to Villazon ground to halt at 3am. The tanoy message was translated for us by a Spanish traveller. There was water on the line, and we would proceed as soon as it had been whiped off! At 10 am the following morning we were very familiar with the countryside outside the window. One good thing, had we completed the journey on schedule we would have missed all the amazing views. Also, Simone who we were travelling with by then LOVES trains, so she was in heaven!
On the journey from the Bolivian border our bus was searched twice during the night on the way to Salta. The border guards were hunting out coca leaves and tourists who´d not waited and queued at immigration for the necessary immigration stamps. This would be understandable. We queued with Simone our Swiss friend and the Spanish guy from the train. For over 2 hours we waited, slowly shuffling forwards. An hour before the border was due to close the menacing black clouds released their onslaught of tropical rain. The whole of humanity picked up thier luggage and surged forwards. We all moved forwards as one, and in the crush, just under a sheltered area we were called over by a border guard. He showed us where we could duck under a barrier to join the queue in sight of the small serving hatch. There were certain advantages of having a pretty Swiss girl on your team! Simone was nearest the front, so took the passports for our group, and also from a Belgium / Luxembourg couple and one from an Irish girl. The back of the queue was pushing forwards, and there was no place for the front to go, except to plant their faces further into the glass at the front, behnd which the bureaucratcs calmly sat enjoying tea and air conditioning. They put all our details into a computer, and also wrote out the details by hand into an A3 size ledger. They were stamped to allow our passage for 90 days and handed back. Did they check our faces against the pictures? Could they even see how many of us there were in relation to the number of passports? A bit of a panic as we were one passport short. By now Jim ams I were being ´assertive´ to get ourselves out of the increasingly agitated crowd, and to recover Simone´s rucksack. It turned out that the guards had not heard of Luxembourg, so they had sent that passport to a back room to double check. Simone did a great job and our truely international group entered a very wet Argentina, with quite a degree of relief.
So, after a rather fraught journey, really since leaving Uyuni, we are having some time relaxing in Salta, to resume our journey again tomorrow. Salta has a real European feel, a pavement cafe culture, nice people and a friendly hostal. We now have 2 friends for the next stage of the journey. Simone, 20 who we met on the tour of the Salt Lakes in Bolivia, and the Irish girl, Aoife, 24, who we met at the border. Her plans matched ours, so tomorrow we all head for Iguazu Falls.
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