Travel Adventures to the Edge of Town

Last night, at 9pm, we anxiously walked through the bustling bus station in La Paz with all of our current belongings. Like everywhere else, friendly people helped us find our bus that we had pre-booked and we were escorted to our bus and the seats that would be ours for the next nine hours.

Now, what do you picture when you think of a South American bus? Are you picturing open doors and windows and chickens flapping about? While I’m sure those exist, those are not the travel buses! This bus was the nicest I have ever been on. A double decker that only had three seats per row because the seats were so wide. The seats came with a sort of foot rest and leaned back to 160 degrees (don’t worry, there was plenty of space for this!). Plus, they gave us all a blanket!

We really debated how to get from La Paz to Uyuni, our next destination. Their are flights, but they are rare and not inexpensive. An overnight bus is $14. I’m sorry we didn’t get to see scenery along the way, but this way, our travels didn’t take up a whole day. Now, the bus was nice, but the roads are not necessarily, so the bus rattled much of the night, but with sleeping pills and audiobooks, we were able to at least make the nine hours pass quickly. Most times when I was awakened, there were bright city (or town) lights around, but about an hour before our stop, there was absolutely nothing (more on that later, but that’s why we’re here!). 

At 6am, our bus arrived precisely on time to a pitch black, well below freezing small town. We didn’t really have much of a plan, but hoped if nothing else, we could sit in the lobby of our hotel for a few hours until the sun came up, things opened and we warmed up a bit. Our hotel didn’t look too far, so we bundled up, took off by foot in a strange, dark city using the maps on our phones to help us. The town was absolutely dead at 6am, minus the few dogs that ran past or curiously came over to sniff us. We only encountered a couple of people and about that many cars. 

Now, many of you may know the story better than I do, but as legend has it, Butch Cassidy ran off to a small town in Bolivia. It was not this one, but from what I’ve read, it is similar. So, get Butch Cassidy in your head (the old West, not the train robber). Got it? Now, imagine that town was transported to modern days. You may have the start to the right picture of Uyuni. One horse town? Yes, although I haven’t seen a horse. One traffic light? Well, I haven’t seen that either.

Ok, so you’ve got an image of two lost Americans wandering through a frigid foreign town in pitch black, yes? I’ll add to the picture. Our hotel is on the edge of town. I mean, go to the edge and turn left. So, once we passed the train tracks, we still had about ten blocks left to go. At that point, the streets were possibly covered in sand or just made of sand. Most buildings around us were dilapidated or never finished being built. We saw incredibly few signs of life, and I’m honestly surprised no tumbleweed blew by in front of us. We got to the edge, and I mean edge because out in front of us is vast nothingness with a few mountains in the distance and didn’t see our hotel. Panic started setting in. We checked the map again and we were about a block off. After turning two dark, abandoned corners, we saw our refuge! And thank heavens because Jess’ eyelashes has icicles on them and our masks seemed to be dripping with condensation.

By this point it’s 6:30, glitters of light start to show in the distance and we’ve walked at least a mile and are questioning why we didn’t take a taxi. But, our gracious host let’s us in and even lets us in to our adorable room. It’s precious, and probably the honeymoon sweet, although there is a big bed and a twin bed. But there are swans artistically carved on the salt wall (yep, plus the bedside table is made of salt, too!) above the bed and there’s a heart-shaped large jacuzzi tub. It’s perfect, right? Well, through Google Translate we learned that because of the frigid temps, the pipes are frozen so our water doesn’t work, but we can use the bathroom in the main building. Oh, and have I mentioned that they don’t have central heating here? Don’t worry, beds have lots of blankets and we have a gas space heater in our room… we just can’t use it when we sleep. Ah, adventures of traveling!

Our Hotel

We rested for a while knowing that our true adventure begins tomorrow, and it was okay if we didn’t rush to see the…sights?  Several hours later, we awoke and hunger led us into town. This side of the train tracks looks just as abandoned in the daylight, but the other side was bustling! Restaurants, who thrive off of tourism, all serve the same touristy food of pizza, burgers and pasta with photographic menus. The restaurant we chose had a pretentious cat and friendly dog inside, so obviously we chose the best one!

We found more seemingly endless markets with everything you could ever need. Is it just because this is a weekend? Is it like this everyday? One small market even had some sort of fair going on as well. Hundreds of people participated in eating street food, playing games, possibly doing some sort of lottery and lots of merry-making. But once again, when you cross the train tracks, it is completely dead.

Uyuni is an interesting town, and I certainly enjoyed our day of rest here (and don’t worry, water, hot water even was readily available in the afternoon!). But it is the gateway to a world of wonder that we get to start exploring tomorrow! Hopefully, we’ll see some alpacas, flamingos, and maybe even some snow, but I’m hoping no tumbleweeds head our way.