Leaving La Paz

We were up in plenty of time for a 7am breakfast and 8am departure.  Seven of the group had decided to catch the night bus from La Paz to Sucre tonight, rather than have to wild camp.  We were doing our journey into central La Paz in reverse, so we boarded the bus.  Initially, we were going against the traffic, so we made good progress in leaving the city and heading back to El Alto.  However, when we reached El Alto, for some inexplicable reason, our driver drove straight through the middle of a very busy market.  Inevitably, we got stuck!!  For a very long time, we were going nowhere!  It was chaos!  We couldn’t take photos because neither of us was sitting by a window on a packed bus.

We finally got back on the truck and on our way to Sucre at around 11am!  With fewer of us on the truck, Mark and I were able to have a seat each for the first time in a long time!  Within 45 minutes, however, we had broken down!  The drive shaft had sheared off, and we were leaking diesel!  We were still in the outskirts of La Paz!

We had broken down on the main road, so there were shops and restaurants around to keep us going while Ritchie, Nikki, Sam, and Dave (who only joined the truck today!) did a repair.  It took until 4.15pm to get us back on the road!  

It was a long, straight road with few opportunities for wild camping.  We stopped for bush toilet at 6.40pm, and Nikki told us that we were heading to a hotel in Oruro 50km further on.  So, no wild camping for us tonight!

We arrived at the Oruro Inn at about 8pm.  It was basic but quite comfortable.  We even had a Christmas tree in our room!  Some people ventured out to find food.  We had a drop of surprisingly good Bolivian port and were in bed by 9pm!Read more