Departing Oruro for the second time...nearly....

I visited 7 bus offices today. The main one is easy to find and goes to some big or popular towns and cities including La Paz and Uyuni. There are lots of bus companies however which own just one or two buses and those are the sort of ones which go to Salinas De Garci Mendoza. There is in fact just one company which does that and runs one bus only on some days of the week.

The bus was running today, at 5pm. The sign outside the office said a 6pm departure. Luckily I´d turned up at 4pm to try and secure a ticket for a seat. I was told to come back at 5pm and see if there was one free. So, I dash back to the hotel to get my bike and gear. The bike is in a small garage and there is a 4x4 parked tightly in front of it and I cannot get by. There is a taxi with no driver in it parked against the garage door, so after finding the guy with the 4x4 keys, he cannot reverse out. Time is marching on, so I decide that we need to move the taxi. Luckily he has left his handbrake off, so me and the 4x4 driver give it a push along the street a few metres. That´s when the police turn up. They stop their car and ask us what we are up to. We explain, and they get out and give us a hand pushing it clear. I get on my bike, with my new pannier and whiz to the bus station office. I get there about 4:50 but am told that there is no room for my bike and bags, so I cannot get on. I book a ticket for the next bus, which is not today, nor tomorrow, but Sunday.

Oh well, I have some time to do my blog now...

22-10-2010 The view from the hotel Monarca in Oruro
There are no strict systems here. If you want to set up your market stall on the railway line then that´s perfectly fine. When the train comes along it gives a polite toot and the market trader moves his or her stall enough for it to get by. The same happens on the road. The car horn is not used in anger, a toot-toot is issued some way before a car gets to an obstacle, be it a bike or a blind corner on a single lane road. It looks like  chaos at first, but the low speed and common sense seem to keep the country´s transport system in working order.