Bernie's Travels: Taking the train from Oruro, Bolivia to Argentina

From Oruro, Bolivia I left the town festivities to get on an afternoon train bound for the southern border with Argentina. To make it over to Iguazul Falls to meet up with my sister it made sense to go south to the good roads of Argentina then over and up. Between the train to Argentina and the buses to the falls I was looking at another 45 hours of travel. I had a long way to go, but I would be there soon.

The train ride from Oruro to the border was absolutely gorgeous. It looked a lot like home in southern Arizona, but even more wild and remote. It was the “wild west” of Bolivia and interestingly enough the place where Butch Cassady and the Sunset Kid robbed their last train. Apparently they had made it down here to continue doing the business the knew best and ended up meeting their match in Tupizna. Bolivia, one of the stops we would be making on our trip.

The train ride was supposed to take 15 hours from Oruro to the border with Argentina, but ended up taking a little over 20 hours. In the middle of the night the locomotive gave out and we had to wait until they sent another one. Then, early the next morning a section of the tracks was buried in rubble from the previous days rains. It took some time for the railroad to uncover the tracks and let the train continue on. I was a long time to be stuck on a train, but it was comfortable enough and met some nice people. The best part of the whole delay was that we were able to see much of the spectacular scenery that we would have otherwise passed during the night. Besides, what another 5 hours when it it is already a 15 hour trip.

At the border in Villazon most people were walking from the train station to the border and then taking a bus into Argentina. My first impression of Argentina wasn't terrific. After quickly making it through the Bolivian immigration to get my exit stamp I had to wait more than two hours to make it through the Argentinian immigration. Everyone from the train crossing the border arrived at lunch time, and it was a nice long lunch. The whole line stopped and we could see the immigration officials leisurely eating at their lunch and drinking mate as there were almost a 100 people waiting to get through. One thing that I have noticed about Argentina is there is very little sense of urgency about almost anything, our two hour wait was a testament to that. On the bright side I got meet some great people waiting in line and we all ended up traveling another 5 hours to the city of Salta.

The bus ride to Salta was a lot of fun. I ended up meeting a lot of great people that I hung out with in Salta for a couple of days. I also met a really great couple from Brazil that spent most of the bus trip helping me with my Portuguese. I had been studying it some and wanted to learn as much as I could before making it to Brazil.