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in the morning we are awoken by a rising sun which shins through the iron curtains. But it is not until 7am before we arrive in Orure. In the meantime we enjoy a a splendid landscape with lagoons and flamingos.
In Oruro we have to use our baggage receipts to collect all our luggage. It's a miracle that none of the suit cases or backpacks has lost it's (paper) tag. Then we drive with 5 taxi's to the bus terminal. This is good planing : arriving 15 have before the bus to La Paz leaves (for another four hour drive). But because the driver has his 'permit' to drive to La Paz, we must first wait for 10 minutes, which turns into 30 minutes, and eventually we have to switch to the nine o'clock bus. According to me is this a trick of the bus-company to ensure they are driving with fully loaded busses. The last (few empty) places are sold outside the terminal to people along the side of the street who stand waiting. This way they save 2bs (enter fee for the station).
A Spanish spoken version of 'Solo' must make travel more pleasant, but that isn't a real success story. In La Paz we use several taxi's to drive the last kilometers to the hotel. Here we enter a known area, because the second night we have here already slept in the same hotel. We can no compare the improvement all of us have made in respêct to altitude sickness. It's a lot easier after two weeks training.
First Willem explains the possibilities for the coming days and afterwards the chambers are taken. We have a room on the second floor in stead of the third, but still on the noisy street side.
After cleaning out our luggage and taking a refreshing shower, we have a lunch in 'El Lobo'. Then Britte joins us to explore the surroundings of the hotel: the witchcraft markets (with lama foetuses - but we mustn't sacrifice anything), tourist shops, fruit stables and shopping stables.
By 5.30pm we send a short e-mail to home (it has been 4 days), and exact at six o'clock we are in the hotel to meet Sofie. She is the sister of a (school) girlfriend of Veerle. A taxi drives us to the apartment near the Plaza des Estudents. Here we meet her husband and the two children (Anaï and Emily). Stories about past and present times are told. Partly in Dutch, partly in Spanish. Sofie is a translator, so no problem here.
After a pizza and cake it is bed time for the children, and we take the taxi back to the hotel. I off to bed immediately, but Veerle has plans for a 'late' night out.
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