Misadventure in Oruro

I introduced Animal to some animals, originally uploaded by trekker_neris.

Where to begin? What was supposed to be a nice, 2-night trip to see a volcano and some hot springs turned into a circus of compromises and unexpected delays.

The trip to Oruro was interesting in itself - within a half an hour on the windy mountain roads, we saw an overturned 18-wheeler that had apparently been carrying scrap metal or something of the sort. Luckily it tipped toward the mountain rather than down the precipitous slope, and it even left enough room for our bus to squeeze by. At every town or toll booth we would pick up or drop off market women selling either complete, hot, fried chicken meals, fresh oranges, ice cream, or bread. As people finished their meals on the bus they either threw the trash out the window or dropped their chicken bones and orange peels on the floor. Funny that they kept most of the organic, biodegradable stuff on the bus, and threw the plastic stuff out the window where it'll sit on the roadside for the next few decades. It got dark about half way into the ride, so the views over the 100's-1,000-ft dropoffs ceased, but the sunsets here have always been an awesome sight.

We got into Oruro late and found our hotel (a little over $10/night/2 people, relatively expensive by standards here). Of course there are practically no restaurants or cafes in the town, at least none that are open according to any discernable schedule. I think by then end of the last day we had walked the entire town at least a half a dozen times, for lack of anything else to do. The next day we planned to go to Volcán Sajama, which we were told was about an hour and a half further west towards the Chilean border by a friend who is from Oruro. Well, that was an extremely optimistic estimate. It turned out to be more like 4-5 hours more, but by the time we found that out, it was too late in the day to be able to get there, have time to hike around, and catch the last micro or bus back to Oruro. We had to settle for seeing the snow-capped peaks from the bus between Oruro and Patacamaya, a town on the way to La Paz. We tried to make the most of our stop in Patacamaya by watching a local football game, wandering the market, and approaching mules and other tethered animals scattered throughout the town.

Since Volcán Sajama was a bust, we tried to make the most of our Sunday afternoon and evening by wandering some more, and decided to go to the local hot springs the next morning. This also turned out to be quite a chore, since the micros (5 Bs. or about $0.70) won't run unless they are full, which they will never be on a Monday morning. We ended up paying way too much for a taxi driver to take us there, wait for us, and bring us back to Oruro. This should have taken about a half hour each way, but of course there was a paro on the main roads out of town, so our taxi had to cut through the town garbage dump each way, where other micros and buses were getting stuck in the massive ditches and muck left and right. This also meant that our bus back to Cochabamba that afternoon couldn't get through, so we had to amuse ourselves with more town wandering until about 6:30, when we were lucky enough to get the last 2 seats on one of the first buses back out of town.