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Your best train ride / bus ride
Wed, 11/08/2006 - 06:38
Traveler
Here is my favourite trainride:
Calama (Chile) – Oruro (Bolivia)
When I went to the station to buy the ticket I asked when the train leaves. The clerk answered "today" (the train only runs on Wednesdays – only Gringos want to know it even more precisely…).
Oruro is only 400 km away, but the trip took 48 hours. Later I was told that this was pretty fast. We arrived at the Bolivian border at 3 am but the customs officers wouldn´t start to work before 9 am. So we waited.
A pig was slaughtered, grilled and sold to the passengers, along with some cooked potatoes. It was disgusting and most people threw the food out of the window, where it was eaten by next Wednesday´s pig.
Most Gringos had the shits and the lack of available toilet paper became an urgency. It took the customs 5 hours to look through the entire trainload´s luggage. When they were finished, they said the Chilean locomotive won´t be allowed to proceed to Bolivia. So we waited another 7 hours until a proper Bolivian engine came up to the border, which is at some 12,000 feet altitude, so headaches and bleeding noses made us not to worry about our shits any more.
The train derailed twice during that journey, which was appreciated as there were no on-board toilets (well, there were, but they were needed to transport chicken), so at least everybody had ample time to go outside to fertilize some Altiplano soil.
The second night on the train was Israel´s national holiday. There were about 50 Israelis on the train – they decorated one waggon with their flags and shared vast amounts of spirits with the rest of the passengers. There were some with harps and one guitar – they tought us to sing Hebrew songs.
And this would be my best busride:
I decided to leave Bolivia on a different route. In a COACH!
So I went to the coach station in La Paz. When I crossed Plaza San Francisco I suddenly found myself between teargas-spraying police and a few hundred demonstrators who threw firecrackers at them. Later I was told I was lucky not to get into a demonstration in Potosí, where they use dynamite.
A company called "Corazon de Jesús" ("Heart of Jesus"
offered the cheapest ride to Arica, Chile. So I bought a ticket. With the ticket in my hand they told me the coach doesn´t leave from the coach station, so they rang a taxi for me. The taxi left me at a huge highway/road junction in a seedy industrial area. He told me the bus should be here any minute. It was 11pm. I was alone. I was quite relieved when a bus came round the corner half an hour later. It had "Corazon de Jesús" written all over the windscreen. I wondered how the driver could possibly see the road through it; apparently he trusted in Jesus´ guidance.
Two hours after we left La Paz behind us we were in the mountains again. The coach managed the ascent in first-gear-full-throttle. The engine made a really scary noise and soon overheated so we had to stop. Time for some Bolivian-style water cooling. The coach was one of those 30-year-old Mercedes beasts with a front engine. Next to the driver´s seat there is a big flap-door on the floor – the engine is under it. Buckets were filled and put in the aisle. The passengers on the front seat had to pour water over the engine. The other passengers had to pass the buckets forward. When the last bucket was empty we had to stop again in the next village to refill them.
Water swashed through the aisle and steam filled the coach.
At 7 am we reached the border. The driver said he can´t possibly proceed to Chile with this bus (as the police there cares more about vehicle safety), so he will ring in Arica for another bus to pick us up.
At the Chilean border post. Which is 15 km away from the Bolivian one. So a guy with a Moped shuttled forth and back, bringing over one passenger at one time. At 7 in the morning on 4000 meters altitude. I froze my bottom off…
The Chilean coach really came. It was a wonderful one, complete with shock absorbers and even BRAKES! We passed through the Lauca National Park and when we reached the paved part of the route I even managed to sleep.
Wow—what an adventure! When did you do all of this?
I was going to say Oslo-Bergen as my best train/bus ride, but I would’ve preferred yours—except with some toilet paper.
Hahaha! I would bring some more now, too. That was in 1996/1997.
I´m sure there are dozens of people on this board with similar stories. Please share!
I remember Perú – Santiago (Chile). Remember it more cause i was 3 days and a half on a bus, and it was really,REALLY unconfortable. I was 12, so i can’t say i really appreciated the trip. I just remember La Serena, in Chile very beautiful valley.
I will write some more when i come back from work!
What, you don´t write from your office? I do!
If i had Internet in my office, i would NEVER work. My boss told me i could get it…. but i dunno if i would be able to control myself! ;D
Well, I actually did some work today, too.
I´ll use my office hours tomorrow to tell something about my first ride in a Peruvian taxi! (I´m about to go home now).
Hahaha.. Taking a taxicab can be such an unfortunate adventure in here. It has become a lil bit dangerous. I still take the risk sometimes anyway!
I made a roadtrip from Massachusetts to New Jersey, since my friends and i were following a band. Childish, i know. Still, there was nothing really cool to watch around. Trees, more trees, Mc Donald’s every mile, and highway.
I was on a Greyhound bus from St. Louis to Kansas City. It was late at night (around 4:00 AM) and we stopped at what I thought was a rest stop. I got off, went into the Service Station restroom, and took a ‘dump.’ When I came out, the bus was gone. I asked the Service Station operator and he told me which way it went.
Luckily, I was in my Military uniform. I had no problem hitching a ride on a produce truck that was also headed for Kansas City. It was the first vehicle that came along. The driver told me there would be no problem catching up with the bus because it had to leave the highway and go into town a couple of times. He dropped me at a service station, a ‘flag stop’ for the bus; and the Service station operator put the flag out to signal to the Bus driver that there were passengers.
The Bus driver was very surprised when I got back on the bus: I had left my luggage on the overhead rack.
Maybe that’s why they call me: ‘lucky Eddie.’
Did nobody in the coach notice someone is missing? Odd.
My first taxi ride in Perú:
Before I went, somebody told me I will save money if I don´t take one of the taxis which pull up to the Lima airport terminal (they need a special license to get into the airport), so I should walk through the gate beyond the parking lots and get one of the "normal" ones.
In Lima, it is very easy to become a "taxista". All you have to do is to buy a "taxi" sign and stick it on your windscreen.
So, I found a taxi and after some haggling we agreed on 15 Soles for the ride into town. The driver apologized for the broken door (it wouldn´t shut) and asked me to hold the door with my right hand. He also asked me to pay in advance because he was running out of fuel.
So we went to the next gas station. He pulled an empty 2-liter Coke bottle from the glove compartment and told the gas station clerk to fill it up. At this point I also saw the flexible tube running from the glove compartment into the hole where the radio is suppused to be. This was his tank!
I thought "um, OK." It also explained why the carpet next to my seat was somewhat soaked with fuel. Mind you, this was AFTER I asked the driver if he minds if I smoke (he didn´t).
We were soon stuck in traffic and the driver became nervous – we only had 2 liters of fuel with us. So he took a short cut via the sidewalk and drove back onto the road just before the junction. The car behind us braked hard and the next one behind that bumped into it. The driver saw the minor accident he caused, looked at me and said: "vamoooos!"
3 blocks before we reached the hostel I was heading to we ran out of gas. I told him I don´t mind to walk.
Several train rides all around Switzerland. In my opinion, there is no place on earth with better scenery. It’s beautiful.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
It’s not that easy as it looks. Well, you can do this, but you have to be registered as well. Taking a cab in Lima has become quite dangerous in the past years. It can be a fake one and you can get robbed.
Indeed, i laughed hard at your history, itwas quite funny!!
Oh, Lima, Lima!!!!