Orouro

After spending nearly an hour to get the bus load of us through customs we had a further 4 hours travelling before finally reaching Orouro at about 1.30. During the journey we watched the landscape change from snowy mountains in the distance and rocky terrain at the side of the bumpy road with Llamas running free (some with coloured ribbons tied to them) to rolling hills of scrubby grasses with the occasional stone wall and cattle wandering about. We passed a few towns and villages of red brick that all looked a bit run down and none too inspiring and whilst travelling through just such a one of these I thought to myself, I hope this isnt Orouro, but it was! It wasnt as bad as it looked from the outskirts and by the time we pulled into the bus terminal I was a bit happier having seen lots of women dressed in traditional clothes with the obligatory bowler hats perched on their heads! Such a comical sight but its been tradition here since the 20's when British railroad workers wore them here and introduced the fashion. We made it off the bus and collected our bags then determined to find the tourist office to see if they could help us find somewhere to stay and also help us decide whether we could afford to travel south again to see the Salar de Uyuni which are the largest salt flats in the world. We soon found the tourist info/police station ½ a block away but it was closed with no sign to say when or if it was to open again. A little frustrated we looked on the map again and saw there was a main office in the centre of town which was about 2km away but that didnt open again until 2.30. This gave us plenty of time to walk there, but with our packs after a long, cold bus journey and with nothing to eat or drink since the day before it proved to be a bit of a task, not to mention the fact that we were at 3600m above sea level!! It is amazing how much the altitude affects you, what would normally have been fairly easy soon had me breathless and a little lightheaded so that by the time we made it to the square I was very glad to sit for 10 minutes and catch my breath. The square was really the only pleasant part of town we saw with big impressive looking buildings and a nice park in the middle, the rest of the place reminded us a bit of Cuba with the general disrepair of everything and the smell that you get when rubbish is left sitting in the gutters all day. The interesting part was the people, there is the highest population of indigeonous people in all of South America here in Bolivia and you can certainly tell that by the way they dress, how they look and the fact that even their own seem out of place when dressed in modern style clothes. It seemed that we were the only tourists in the whole place as we didnt see or hear a single other 'gringo' all day even though we were walking through markets and around bus stations, the usual hangouts! However in a few weeks time there is a huge festival here which is said to bring thousands of people including many many tourists so we were kind of glad to see it in its authentic state. Meanwhile, Andy went off to see if the building that contained the Tourist office was open at all as it had shutters over the doors and windows. It wasnt looking hopeful and then it began to rain too so we scurried to the other side of the square to shelter and wait until 2.30 just in case the tourist office opened. Andy went on the search for coffee unsuccessfully and when 2.30 came and went and the shutters were still down we decided we'd have to find somewhere to stay ourselves and so set off for a place mentioned in the guidebook. Luckily this wasnt too far and we were shown to a private room which was to cost us under $10 for the both of us...definitely the cheapest place we've stayed so far and it was a private room instead of a dorm too!! After settling in the sun was now shining and we decided to go check the internet to see what we could find about Uyuni and the salt flats ourselves. It turned out that most tour companies only do 2/3 day tours which were far out of our price range and even if we could do a day trip it would take us 3 days in time because of the times the buses leave, therefore meaning we'd have very little time in La Paz and that we'd spend 2 more nights on coaches which we didnt relish the prospect of. Deciding therefore that it wasn't going to be, we headed back to the bus station to book tickets to La Paz for the next day only to find that you had to buy them on the day!! We did however manage to get a good coffee at the cafe there and a sweet empanada each for about $1 so it wasnt all a waste of time. When we got back to the hostel I had a lovely hot shower then we headed out for dinner in a pizza restaurant Andy had found in the guide books. It turned out to be a cozy little place with lots of locals (always a good sign) where you could see the chef throwing the dough to make the bases and lots of people coming in and out for takeaway too. We decided on a family sized asparagus pizza which was totally delicious and even when there was a power cut due to the storm raging around us we weren't deterred and carried on in the dark until the lights came back on. Once finished we made our way back to the hostel in the now drizzle, stopping briefly to buy some chocolate to eat whilst we watched a film before bed.