When I first thought about doing this journey over land, I came across a blog post by an Irish woman, Sorcha O'Higgins, who had taken a bus from La Paz to Buenos Aires in 2014. She wrote:
"Once you spend two entire days of your life being lied to, blamed, bored, exhausted and confined, the return to normality will be like the awakening of spring after a long and arduous winter. The phrase “once in a lifetime experience” is applicable, but not in the positive way it’s usually meant."
And summarised:
"I will never, ever, take that fucking bus again."
Being a positive person by nature, I did not let her words to discourage me but simply skipped to the essential, i.e. the pieces of concrete advice. There were three:
"1. Reliable information is nigh impossible to find. It is likely you will be met with ignorant grunts, impatient attitudes and a headfuck of conflicting data.
2. They will tell you whatever the hell they want to sell you a ticket. Truth is no object.
3. Something will definitely go wrong at some stage, so you need to be fairly mellow and flexible about this whole experience. If you are a control freak, or an accountant, you’re probably better off flying."
By the time I got to La Paz (accounts here and here), I hadn't had any too bad experiences. I had come to the conclusion that while all bus companies had by now made it to the Internet era, it was probably best not to trust schedules and prices posted on their websites. That said, the buses had always left around the times that was printed on the ticket, and they had always, eventually, brought me to the city I had been promised to be brought to. As the La Paz bus station looked more modern and reasonable than the other ones I had been at so far, I thought things could only get better.
A day before I wanted to leave, I walked to the station to enquire about schedules. I had done some research, and it looked like to cross over to Argentina, I should take a bus to a little border town called Villazon. Villazon is about 18 hours from La Paz, but I had found that it might actually be possible to buy a ticket all the way to the city of Jujuy, which I estimated to be around 24 hours away.
The schedule hunt was always the tedious part - walking from a counter to another and asking the same questions over and over again. All over Peru and Bolivia, the system was the same: the bus stations were operated by different bus companies, often as many as 40 or 50 of them, and the only way to find out which companies had service between the cities you wanted to visit was to go and ask each one. They had, of course, names of destinations written on their windows, but you learned to assume that that was not the whole story.
Getting the information was tricky business. For some reason, no matter what time of the day it was, many of the booths seemed to be empty. If they did have someone inside, it was possible that they were on the phone and paid no attention to people outside their booth. If they were empty, one option was to stand outside and wait that someone would miraculously show up.
I waited in front of one for a while, but no one came. I moved on to wait in front of another, and after just a few minutes, a man came up puffing and almost running: he was small and badly-dressed and looked more like a cleaner than an office worker. When he asked what I wanted, it sounded like it was completely unheard-of that someone would come and enquire about bus schedules from a bus company, and first he got me so confused that I couldn't get a word out of my mouth. When he then understood my question, he said, "Oh, no, we don't go there. Try the company over there."
And this way I moved from a counter to another. When the next one gave me a "no" as well, I tried helplessly pointing to the sign above the woman's head that read "Villazon": "But it says here that you go there!" The woman just shook her head and told me to try another one.
I had luck at the next one I found with a person inside: he said that his company indeed had a service to Villazon. "Every day at 1, 3 and 5 pm", he said. That sounded good. But then I asked for the price, and he started looking around on his desk. He went through some papers, got up, walked to a chest, opened all three drawers and pulled some papers out, put them back in, walked to the other side of the small booth, found a key to more drawers and pulled out more messily organised papers. When he finally found a slip of paper with something hand-written on it and quoted the price, I didn't have much faith left.
The last counter was better in all ways. The polite young man told me that, for sure, they drive daily to Villazon, found all the information on his computer, gave me the price and even showed me photos of the kind of reclining seats the bus would have. The price was more expensive, so I told him I couldn't book it yet as I didn't have that much cash on me, but he said I could simply pay a reservation fee and pay the rest on the day. I considered the offer, but finally refused, as I still wanted to think it over.
I ended up staying in La Paz for two more days, and on the day of my departure, I walked briskly back to the bus station. It was going to be easy this time: I knew the company, I knew the schedule, I had the correct amount of cash all ready in my pocket.
I walked to the counter of my choice and said I would like to buy one ticket to Villazon, pretty please.
"We don't have a service to Villazon", the girl said apologetically. I stared at her. "No?" I then asked. I knew it was pointless to argue; trying to prove her wrong would not gain anything. Two days ago the company had had service to Villazon, every day at 3. In the present day, such a service had never existed. "No", she confirmed. "Try over there."
I did still get to leave that day, with the company that had found the ticket price on a piece of paper. When the time of departure came, though, I was stuffed to a bus of a third operator and just had to hope that my ticket was valid for them. The next morning, waking up in Villazon, I was told to cross the border on foot and then find another bus station two kilometres away, where a bus of yet another company would leave from - seven hours later.
At this point I did make a fuss, as I had been assured, many times over, that the change would be an hour or two and that the journey would be a total of only 23 hours. Of course, arguing was just as pointless this time. After standing in the border queue for two hours, then crossing the border and walking to the next town, all I could do was wait for three hours in the scorching heat in a place where everything was closed for the afternoon siesta.
What came after it made it all worth, though: the most beautiful bus trip of the whole journey.
The schedule hunt was always the tedious part - walking from a counter to another and asking the same questions over and over again. All over Peru and Bolivia, the system was the same: the bus stations were operated by different bus companies, often as many as 40 or 50 of them, and the only way to find out which companies had service between the cities you wanted to visit was to go and ask each one. They had, of course, names of destinations written on their windows, but you learned to assume that that was not the whole story.
Getting the information was tricky business. For some reason, no matter what time of the day it was, many of the booths seemed to be empty. If they did have someone inside, it was possible that they were on the phone and paid no attention to people outside their booth. If they were empty, one option was to stand outside and wait that someone would miraculously show up.
I waited in front of one for a while, but no one came. I moved on to wait in front of another, and after just a few minutes, a man came up puffing and almost running: he was small and badly-dressed and looked more like a cleaner than an office worker. When he asked what I wanted, it sounded like it was completely unheard-of that someone would come and enquire about bus schedules from a bus company, and first he got me so confused that I couldn't get a word out of my mouth. When he then understood my question, he said, "Oh, no, we don't go there. Try the company over there."
And this way I moved from a counter to another. When the next one gave me a "no" as well, I tried helplessly pointing to the sign above the woman's head that read "Villazon": "But it says here that you go there!" The woman just shook her head and told me to try another one.
I had luck at the next one I found with a person inside: he said that his company indeed had a service to Villazon. "Every day at 1, 3 and 5 pm", he said. That sounded good. But then I asked for the price, and he started looking around on his desk. He went through some papers, got up, walked to a chest, opened all three drawers and pulled some papers out, put them back in, walked to the other side of the small booth, found a key to more drawers and pulled out more messily organised papers. When he finally found a slip of paper with something hand-written on it and quoted the price, I didn't have much faith left.
The last counter was better in all ways. The polite young man told me that, for sure, they drive daily to Villazon, found all the information on his computer, gave me the price and even showed me photos of the kind of reclining seats the bus would have. The price was more expensive, so I told him I couldn't book it yet as I didn't have that much cash on me, but he said I could simply pay a reservation fee and pay the rest on the day. I considered the offer, but finally refused, as I still wanted to think it over.
I ended up staying in La Paz for two more days, and on the day of my departure, I walked briskly back to the bus station. It was going to be easy this time: I knew the company, I knew the schedule, I had the correct amount of cash all ready in my pocket.
I walked to the counter of my choice and said I would like to buy one ticket to Villazon, pretty please.
"We don't have a service to Villazon", the girl said apologetically. I stared at her. "No?" I then asked. I knew it was pointless to argue; trying to prove her wrong would not gain anything. Two days ago the company had had service to Villazon, every day at 3. In the present day, such a service had never existed. "No", she confirmed. "Try over there."
I did still get to leave that day, with the company that had found the ticket price on a piece of paper. When the time of departure came, though, I was stuffed to a bus of a third operator and just had to hope that my ticket was valid for them. The next morning, waking up in Villazon, I was told to cross the border on foot and then find another bus station two kilometres away, where a bus of yet another company would leave from - seven hours later.
At this point I did make a fuss, as I had been assured, many times over, that the change would be an hour or two and that the journey would be a total of only 23 hours. Of course, arguing was just as pointless this time. After standing in the border queue for two hours, then crossing the border and walking to the next town, all I could do was wait for three hours in the scorching heat in a place where everything was closed for the afternoon siesta.
What came after it made it all worth, though: the most beautiful bus trip of the whole journey.
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