La Paz/Oruru, Bolivia

Thursday, January 13, 2005:

I had to get out of La Paz. Its a great city, but I just couldn´t see myself spending another month there --- which, it seemed, was a possibility if the protests and blockades of the highways in and out kept up. At one point last year the roads around La Paz were blocked for over 3 weeks. I asked some of the employees at my hotel and at a cafe whether they had heard news as to whether buses were leaving the city. Most people didn´t know, but a few told me that my chances were good if I left quickly.

I made it to the bus station at 10:30 and saw encouraging signs of activity. I booked the next bus south to the city of Oruru, with no clear destination in mind after arriving there. Part of me wanted to head to the city of Sucre, some 14 hours Southeast, where I could enroll in a Spanish language program for a week or two. Another part of me wanted to visit Potosi, the "highest city in the world" and once-upon-a-time silver mining center of the Americas (it is estimated that over 8 million Africans and Indians died in the mines as starved, forced coca-addict slaves of the Spaniards; mining under horrific conditions continues in Potosi today, mainly for zinc and other minerals, with miners living an average of only 10 years following their commencement of work in the mines). Finally, I knew I had to visit Uyuni, a small city on the edge of the world´s largest salt flats in the Southern Altiplano, though I wasn´t sure when I would want to head there.

My bus left at 11:45, smelling vaguely of vomit and lemon disinfectant. It was a fairly sorry-looking vehicle, with sorrier brakes; each time the driver stopped at a light on our way uphill and out of the city, the bus slid backwards alarmingly. At least we wouldn´t be leaving on "The World´s Most Dangerous Road," as we were heading south on the Altiplano at a relatively constant altitude (about 3700 meters).

We climbed slowly out of the city, passing the toll booth and road to the airport that had been blocked by demonstrations when I had returned from Rurrenabaque several days earlier.

Although it had been billed as a "direct" bus, we made several stops along the way out of the city and in a run-down section of El Alto. At the latter stop I noticed a sign for another bus company --- which could well have been a subsidiary or sister company to the company I was currently traveling with. The sign read exactly as follows:

JUMBO BUS
"AROMA"

(The sign also marked what may be the first clear example of truth-in-advertising I have seen among a vast and motley assortment of South American bus companies. My bus had plenty of "aroma," but nobody was kind enough to tell me about it upfront.)

After the stop, we continued on our way south on the highway out of El Alto. Brown and yellow mountains loomed on the horizon, rising above expanses of low yellow shrubs and fields of sheep and cattle. Grim and decayed brick buildings ran along the sides of the road and, as we progressed, I noticed more and more people sitting and standing along the stretches of dust and gravel that
served for their front yards. Broken down cars and tractors rusted in nearby heaps while feral dogs bared their fangs at one another over the many scraps of garbage that lay in the gutters along the road. Our bus ground to a dead stop.

There was a truck in front of us and, in front of the truck, another bus. They stood motionless. The bus doors opened and the attendant, a boy of perhaps 16, got off to look down the road ahead. Peering out of my window, I could make out crowds in the street several hundred feet in front of us. A few of them were waving flags and there were several tires burning, sending up thick black plumes of smoke.

A number of people got off the bus to stretch and smoke cigarettes. One man passed a woman acquaintance at the front of the bus and told her he was going to pass by the crowd on foot and try to get a taxi on the other end. Most people seemed surprised by the blockade --- the news had suggested that routes out of the city were now clear. Perhaps nobody had told this last disaffected hold-out. On the other hand, although it might sound trite/insensitive, it seemed that there were a great many people in front of us who had absolutely nothing else better to do than keep on demonstrating.

From time to time, we would roll forward briefly and pass a large crowd of people who had moved to the side of the road (one boy, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, smiled mischievously at the bus as we passed while waving two large rocks at us). The progress was encouraging, but we always seemed to stop again, with another wave of people blocking our way. Traffic into La Paz trickled by us, stray vehicle by stray vehicle. People were making their way toward the city, so it seemed that we had a chance of making it out. But then we found ourselves ground to a halt for 45 minutes flat. I didn´t know what was happening, but the bored attendant seemed convinced we would be moving again shortly. We finally did, and for good. As we left El Alto behind us, bus after bus of soldiers in green and brown uniform with blue berets passed by us, waving at us from their windows. They looked like clones of my Rurrenabaque pampas guide, Carlos. A whole contingent of Bolivian Rambos.

The view for another 4 1/2 hours: fields, mountains, low-growing shrubbery and a whole lotta llamas; one lonely highway running through it all. A beautiful view with surprisingly little green in it. The low strange sky was a dark and menacing slate-gray. It rained occassionally but only lightly.

We reached Oruru at 5:00 PM. I checked into a hotel with cable TV and a private bathroom (a steep $10) and wandered over to the train station to buy a seat for the Expreso del Sur train to Uyuni, departing at 3:30 PM the next day. While en route to Oruru, I had heard that labor unions across the country were threatening a series of strikes that would not only block entry into and out of La Paz, but also into and out of all major cities on the Altiplano (Potosi would certainly be included and the only way to Uyuni out of Sucre is through Potosi). With this in mind, heading toward the Bolivian/Argentinian border ASAP seemed logical.

I spent the next few hours exhausting myself as I explored Oruru on foot. Not big and not particularly pretty, its a flat city of 200,000 people located at the foot of a small mountain. Famous in Bolivia for its Carnival celebrations, the population is said to be approximately 90% pure American Indian. Walking around, I couldn´t make out the other 10%. Everywhere I went, I was Whitey. Not that I minded.

While it lacked major landmarks, the city was interesting for its many street markets and the numerous diverse shops that were crowded with late-night shoppers. I had an insanely cheap and filling steak-with-fried-eggs-and-chorizo dinner (with beer) at an Argentinian-style grillhouse named, appropriately, Las Delicias. When the waiter asks you if you "want cheese on both your fries and rice," you know you´re in a good place ("Yes!" I said. "Want a salad with that?" "No!"). I then went back to the hotel to relish in a night of cable television for a rare change. I watched the first movie I could find; it was The Devil´s Advocate. Views of New York´s financial district filmed from the 180 Maiden Lane offices of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, anyone? Spooky.