My intestines were in full rebellion on the morning of 23rd January so I had very little immediate enthusiasm for getting out of bed, let alone doing the trip to the famous nearby salt lake – the Salar de Uyuni. I am aware that this is the largest salt lake in the world – something like 10,000 square km, but the main reason for coming to Uyuni wasn’t to see the Salar but to catch the train to Chile. The railway line from La Paz to the Chilean port of Antofagasta runs through Uyuni, and my plan was to catch the next train, whenever that was.
After getting myself out of bed mid morning I did make enquiries about trips to the Salar. However the only option was a jeep trip, and this cost $20 which was way over my budget, so I decided I will see a salt lake somewhere else (preferably some time when I don’t require a toilet with such alarming frequency).
Enquiring about the train, I was told that only one passenger train runs on the line, that it would pass through Uyuni at 3:30 am that night, and that at 4 pm I would be able to get a ticket for it. Some time after 4:30 pm there were finally some signs of life at the station office and I was able to get a ticket with a reserved seat. I spent the rest of the evening relaxing, consuming tea and toast, and catching up on my diary.
At 2:30 am on the morning of 24th January I somehow got myself up and packed, and headed to the station through the cold darkness only to find that the train was delayed by a few hours. So I lay down on the waiting room floor until 6 am. Finally at 6:30 am the train turned up. But the seat that I had supposedly reserved was occupied and the person occupying it wasn’t impressed by my piece of paper. I wandered up and down the train and eventually found an empty seat. I got chatting to the man next to me and found it very hard to understand him. He spoke rather quickly in a weird sing-song fashion, without pronouncing the letter “s” at the end of the words. He said he was from Chile – apparently what I was hearing was a Chilean accent…
Nearby in the carriage were some guys with Andean instruments who were playing folk music to keep themselves and those around them entertained. The rather unusual thing was that they were tall with blond hair and were actually backpackers from Sweden! But their rendition of the local folk music sounded authentic. Someone told me that a British group called “Incantation” had made themselves proficient at playing Andean folk music, and had become quite highly regarded…
The line ran across incredibly remote parts of the altiplano, initially across a huge flat lake bed surrounded by distant volcanos, then amongst hills and finally after many hours the train stopped at the Chilean border. It was just a collection of huts in the middle of nowhere. There was apparently nowhere to change money, so clearly that would have to wait.
Waiting was the appropriate word – the train sat for 4 hours while everyone and everything was processed by both sets of overenthusiastic border officials. Then finally it was all done – we all piled back on board, and the train spent a few more hours slowly descending from the altiplano down into the increasingly arid Atacama Desert.
There was fortunately a restaurant car on the train, which served me with tea and toast. I also tried some yoghurt which I had been told could be good for recovering from upset intestines. I managed to get some sleep after the miserable and interrupted night in Uyuni. Then at last I reached my destination of Calama – a mining town in the middle of the Atacama. I followed the Swedish musicians to one hotel, which was full. The second one was pretty bad, but I wasn’t prepared to be fussy, and checked in.