La Paz to Uyuni

I got an email from my awesome cabinmate Peg yesterday morning about another ship that was in trouble in Antarctica. It was a small "luxury" ship that had the bridge windows smashed out by a big wave which in turn did a number on the electronics. They were being escorted back to Ushuaia by the Argentine navy.

One thing that I didn't mention was that we got a behind-the-scenes-tour, ie. the engine room, on our last afternoon. The Vavilov has two engines, can run on one and the mechanics can completely rebuild an engine at sea. They carry duplicate parts to do so. I think that *my* good fortune started when the Clipper Adventurer, my oringinal ship, ran around.

On my first morning in La Paz at breakfast an Israeli woman had asked if I was having hard time with the altitude and I said that my head was spinning as much from my last trip as the height. It turns out that she is a penguin freak, her words, and that South Georgia and Antarctica are her big lifetime dream destinations. I was happy to fill her in on some details and told her to choose her season and her ship wisely. As it stands the Vavilov and her sister ship the Ioffe seem to be the best choices.

So this morning the exceptionally nice curator from the textile museum, Senor Waldo,  delivered a weaving to the hotel in person as I didn't have enough cash on me when I was there the day before. I am thrilled to own a weaving from the Jalq'a region near-ish to Sucre. Their weavings are usually in black and red and depict and mythical, monstrous creatures in the underworld along with their everyday animals in lives all designed with an eye to protect the wearer from what evil lurks in the world. The piece I have is atypical in that it has a bit of orange, pink and green.

My journey southward didn't start till noon so I had another walkabout in the neighbourhood after I checked out of the hotel and stopped by Iglesia de San Francisco. I chanced upon a furniture exhibit in the cloister with some very fine pieces with a touch of Mission style and a touch of Mackintosh. I haven't checked out the web site yet but here it is: http://www.artesanosdonbosco-bo.com/

When my cruise was rescheduled I had to juggle a number of things and ended up with an odd itinerary. Logically, I should have flown to Sucre not La Paz and taken a bus to Uyuni but it's rainy season so the best guarantee of getting to the salt flats was the local bus on bitumen roads from La Paz to Oruro and then train to Uyuni - there are only gravel roads from Sucre to Uyuni and they are often impassable in heavy rain.

I collected my bags and had the hotel get me a cab to the bus station. I was a bit worried as we circled the station - it looked like a rusted out skank hole from the outside but turned out to be just the opposite inside. It was very well organized. The guy looking after the luggage looked Aymara - he had a baseball cap on with a rainbow swirl and the words "Love Peace and Frogs." Frogs are a symbol of prosperity here but it could also just have been made in Japan. The bus was a cornocopia of smells, some were even pleasant.

Now here's a story that someone told on the ship. They were taking the night bus from Uyuni to La Paz and after the bus was full of regular ticket holders, the locals and all their bags got on. The ticket collector got on and kicked everyone off but almost everyone left their stuff behind. The ticket collector got off, the bus went around the corner and let everyone back on again.

As we pulled out the guy came on to collect the departure tax receipts, then the tickets. As soon as we passed through the gate the bus stopped and let on a group of indigenous people to fill the empty seats. I couldn't tell if they paid or if this was just a free community service. There was a glass divider at the front with a door and it was all curtained over. This was a benefit later on when we were passing vehicles out on the highway. We climbed to El Alto, considered to be the Aymara capital of the world, for an "official" stop next.

La Paz and environs makes San Fransisco look like a city of speed bumps. The topography is so steep and so dense with buildings it looks more like a wall in an escher drawing. The newer buildings look dangerously inadequate for withstanding earthquakes. Typically there are reinforced concrete (a very poor looking mix) post and beam frame with one way concrete floor slabs. I did not see any metal deck or similar forms. The stairs are concrete but there is no shaft wall. The exterior walls are infilled with what I would call a terracotta chimney liner block - 6 celled. Roofs I think are the same as a floor. Many buildings continued the columns up a bit higher than the roof with rebar extended for future addition. (After I read Lucy's Peru blog I now think that this feature may be similar to Isla Taquile where "unfinished" buildings are not taxed) I couldn't see any lateral support, no cross bracing, no shear wall. The floors might offer some diaphram support but it would not compensate for the walls. The whole city looks like a house of cards just waiting for an earthquake. The colonial buildings and the buildings perhaps up to the 30's or so seem sturdier but they are the minority. It looks like the introduction of reinforced concrete is the culprit. Any one out there who can shed some light on this, let me know.

The traffic was thick in El Alto and the "stop" took at least 6 blocks to accomplish. The Peace Love and Frog guy got out, along with a number of the locals who hopped on outside the LaPaz station proper, and opened the luggage door. The bus kept inching forward through traffic the whole time. People and luggage just kept walking along until Peace, Love & Frogs checked their stuff and took their tickets. People just hopped on as the bus moved forward as did vendors with big bundles - the whole process took about 45 minutes.

I was glad to be moving out of the city and the thick cloud of diesel. The dodgy buildings gave way to some dodgy road cuts - very steep dry earth thick with rounded rocks. Glad it wasn't raining. Eucalyptus is the only tree in sight. I assume that as in Peru they clear cut their cedar and imported this tree. It grows quickly but it's a poor choice for the soil - all the nutrients get sucked out pronto. I'm not sure how sturdy the wood is. It's used in construction a fair bit but it looks weedy. The trees are few and far between as we get further onto the altiplano with mostly flat land and rolling mountian tops.

The basic concrete and terracotta block buildings continue out into the countryside but only one or two story high. Mud brick is also used some with corrugated tin roofs and some with quite decent thatch roofs. Brown prevales but sage greens start to take over with a few bright patches or greens here and there...in the distance that is. There are massive roadworks underway parallel to the highway most or the way of my ride. It looks like a divided highway and it looks like it's being built by foreign contractors.

Our bus periodically stopped to pick up/drop off locals and food vendors. Much to the consternation of the sullen man sitting beside me who kept shouting Vamos! I told him him to calm down at one point and glared him into silence. When we rolled into Oruro an hour late I was a little surprised that my luggage also arrived. My taxi driver (yes, I only take the radio cabs) to the train station was very chatty and told me all about carnival. It's Bolvia's biggest festival and involves lots of street dancing - dance of the devils is the most popular - and lots of drinking and I must come back to enjoy it.

The train was fine. It was the Wara Wara del Sur train...the slow one...7 hours slow. The sun set shortly after we pulled out. There were lovely pink and orange clouds and blackness on the ground. About 20 minutes out after the tickets had been collected there was a blaze of light outside. I had an aisle seat so I couldn't quite make out what it was at first but it soon came into focus. We were passing a lake that was reflecting the pink and orange sky and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of flamingos were taking off in waves as the train went by. It lasted all of 20 seconds and then, blackness again. Apart from that dazzling little moment, I'll mention that  the car was heated and had video enterainment: "Dogs and Cats, the Revenge of Kitty Galour" and "Vanilla Sky" I listened to my ipod and watched something slightly contextual that I brought along: "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." They met their end in San Vicente about a 100 km south of where I am now. Interesting how the Hollywood movie had them dying in a blaze of glory while the guide book says that Butch shot Kid who was wounded and then shot himself.

At the five hour mark I was wishing that they would turn the heat down, open a window and that everyone had not eaten chicken for lunch. At 3a we finally arrived and I was free of the chicken farts. Finally got settled in my room around around 3:30 only to find that I manged to dump a half bottle of water on to the end of my bed. A few towels and my pair of gortex socks solved that little problem.  I forced myself to get up and eat something for breakfast and now I'm getting ready to go out into the sunlight - tomorrow, the Salar. Yeah!