This is the beginning of the ordeal to get from Tupiza to Salta… Not really all that far, and I get to leave Bolivia and enter Argentina (hopefully not quite as dusty)
So my options from Tupiza to the border town of Villazon are: a bus at 4am… NO, a bus at 2pm (putting me in Salta some time either in the dark or the next day)… NO, or a train at 9am… sounds great.
I went to the train station the night before to buy the ticket and found out that I could not buy it until the day of at 8am… OK.
So 8am the next day I walked to the train station to find the office not open and a line of about 20 people going around the corner. I chose to walk to the bank (which was closed) and try and change my bolivianos to Argentinean pesos. Obviously that didn’t work. Back to the train station to attempt to buy a ticket.
After finally figuring out where to get a number (the machine didn´t work, you had to go to the front desk) I sat down with number 78… currently helping number 52… it was 8:30 and the train was supposed to leave at 9:05.
I ran back to check out of the hotel, just incase.
I finally got my ticket (which had no time on it anywhere) and figured I should stay around the station… just incase the train wasn’t running on Bolivian time… well, it was. It rolled in sometime around 9:45ish (not to bad for Bolivia)
Now, I had made the mistake (well, I had made a few, and this just happened to be one of them) of not understanding my choices of classes… getting frustrated and saying “la mas barata”- the cheapest.
Granted the ticket only cost me 13 BS (less than $2) but I was in car 1477. Car 1477 was not attached to the train… frankly it was nowhere to be seen…. Hmmm? What to do?
I know, ask the police officer that was nice enough to check my back pack… Ok, he just pointed to the end of the train, those 3 red cars attached to the very end that (due to their peeling paint, and the fact that I think they were made some time in the 1800s) just didn’t seem to match the rest of the train.
None of them were car 1477 either. But, I figured I´d just get on and figure it out later (since my backpack with all my belongings on it was on its way where ever this train was going)
Luckily, wandering aimlessly onto the second car, looking for seat 40, I stumbled into James and Emma, a lovely English couple who informed me that, not to worry, even though car 1477 didn’t exist, I was in the right place.
They had had begun their train experience at 1:30 that morning in Uyuni, by actually getting on car 1477 (which their tickets also said) which was not actually attached to the train. Luckily, someone was nice enough to direct them to the packed cattle car like area they were currently in (at tupiza the car had emptied, so they had only had to be stuck in a freezing car full of far too many people from 1:30 to 9:45… ewww)
Three or four hours after boarding, we had made it to Villazon, bolivian side of the Bolivia Argentina Border. Time for the mad rush to the baggage claim and making our way to the border… I think it´s to the right, and Lonely Planet says it´s fairly close…
