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Thursday afternoon I found myself in the middle of the Bolivian bush, 138 km from the nearest gas station, with the needle on my truck’s gage quickly sliding towards the big “E”.
Sounds about right, doesn’t it?
How did I manage to...
ahem...once again get myself into this kind of situation? Well...it certainly wasn’t my fault. As any good Saskatchewan boy would, when Yimy suggested a road trip this week, I thought, “Sure, why not!? I’m always up for a good road trip.” Sadly, there are very few opportunities here in Bolivia for a good road trip. Where would our road trip take us, you ask? Beautiful downtown Trinidad. That’s a city in Bolivia, by the way...not the tropical island off the coast of South America. I figured I should probably mention that...you know, ‘cause there was bound to be someone who wondered why the heck I was travelling to the Caribbean (Hi Mom!).
For those of you who don’t know, Trinidad is in the northeast part of Bolivia...kind of in the middle of nowhere. The reason we decided to head to the middle of nowhere (besides the intrinsic adventure value), was to get a driver’s license for Yimy. Supposedly it’s cheaper and easier to get in Trinidad, as compared to Santa Cruz...small town and all that.
I didn’t have a map of Bolivia (yes, yes...I could have Google Mapped it...that didn’t occur to me until just now. And yes...they actually do have a map of Bolivia...I just checked...), so we were occasionally winging it a bit. But...it’s mostly one road in, one road out. So...it was all good.
It’s a pretty drive, but it got a bit boring after awhile. Yimy and I usually play Punch Buggy when we’re driving around the city (that’s where the first person to see a VW Bug gets to punch the other person), but obviously that wouldn’t work very well way out in the country. So we started playing Punch Tractor. That actually worked pretty good except that I had to correct Yimy (with a couple of “friendly” shots to the shoulder) that combines were not, in fact, the same as tractors.
On the first half of the trip there were lots of towns, so I wasn’t all that worried about the fuel situation. I figured when I hit a half tank, we’d stop and fill up. We went through a town just as we hit the half a tank mark, but there was a line up of probably thirty cars waiting for fuel, so we decided to fill up at the next station. In hind sight, there was probably a reason why so many people were lined up for gas. For some reason, both Yimy and I both had it in our heads that the next town down the road, San Pedro, would be a big place.
It wasn’t.
Five houses and a soccer field...and definitely no gas station. Now I was down to about a quarter tank, and starting to get worried. I asked the cops at the next check point if there was a gas station nearby. Oh yea...200 km down the road...in Trinidad. But then the officer helpfully added that so and so sold gas in such and such a town just up the road. I didn’t really understand any of the names. But he told us to watch for a red house with a barrel...
And on that helpful set of directions, off we went. Let me just take a moment to fill you in on a little piece of Bolivian trivia. The colour red? That covers everything from orange to pink. It’s not a very specific descriptive word here. So for the next hour, Yimy and I slowed down every time we saw a house that was vaguely in the family of “reddish” to see if there was a barrel somewhere on the property. That got tedious
fast...
Then suddenly there was a bang and a funny noise from the back of the truck, and my first thought was, “Oh good...fuel is no longer a problem. We’re going to break down long
way before we run out of gas.” We kept driving (what else was I going to do? Even if I did figure out what was making the noise, the best I could do was hit it with a tree branch...). Then there were a few more funny noises and I just did what I usually do in these kind of situations...I prayed (if that doesn’t work, sometimes turning up the radio so you can’t hear the funny noises works too).
Prayer worked this time around, and the funny noises went away (we later determined it was the chain that holds the spare tire up under the truck. It had been seized up for as long as I’d had the truck, but had decided to come loose at that moment and was dragging on the ground). At any rate, we were back to worrying about the fuel situation. Just as we were discussing what to do, we drove past a house that had a little hand lettered sign that said “Gasolina”. Sure enough, for twice the going rate, this guy was selling gas...out of a barrel. The house was in fact pink, by the way. Not even close to red.
We did eventually make it to Trinidad. And what was supposed to be that quick and easy two day trip? It ended up getting more complicated. Of course it did. Due to a miscommunication (which we’ll place squarely on the shoulders of the police officer Yimy was talking to), we didn’t finish everything we needed to do on Friday morning. Our only option was to hang around until Monday, or head back to Santa Cruz and lose everything we’d done so far.
So here we are...beautiful downtown Trinidad. Fortunately I brought along my Lonely Planet travel book on Bolivia, to give us ideas on what to do here. Unfortunately there are exactly two paragraphs in a 500 page book on what to do in Trinidad. We did do some exploring in my truck yesterday, and found a cool river and a nice lake. We got out of the truck to brave the +6 Celsius weather (it’s winter) to take a couple of pictures...and then that was the end of that.
Tomorrow it’s back to the police so Yimy can write his exam and take his driver’s test. He says he’s ready. I really,
REALLY hope so. =) All in all though...it’s been a fun little adventure. We’ve had some good laughs and we both learned some new card games.
A few pictures so you can appreciate our adventure along with us...
The highway...
The demonstration we met along the way...and no, I don't
really know what they were demonstrating.
But I honked supportively anyhow...
Buying gas from the guy with the "red" house...
Our first view of Trinidad. Strangely there are probably
ten motorbikes for every car in the city.
I don't know why...
The river...where I hear you can fish for Piranha.
That's definitely on the list for next time...
Cool wooden boats on the river...
We also discovered where LAB (our defunct national airline) planes go to die...
The freezing cold lake...
A crazy, little bridge that people actually drove vehicles over.
And for some reason I kind of wanted to try it...
Yimy demonstrating how wide the bridge was...
And that's been our trip to Trinidad so far. We'll be on our way back to Santa Cruz on Tuesday. I guess if I post here again that means we made it...
