A day to remember in Oruro

As my parents were coming to visit us soon, we had decided that we wouldn’t go to the salt flats or the Laguna Route, as we didn’t want to risk damaging Ruby and it would also be much nicer to go with a working heater. Instead, we thought we’d start heading back north, making sure we had plenty of time to cross the border. We had planned to visit a meteor crater just north of Sucre, but I noticed that our terrible suspension welding from Santa Cruz had already started to fail and we decided not to risk it breaking by taking any more dirt roads. If we got to La Paz, we could repair it properly and then maybe head back to our favourite camping spot on Lake Titicaca for a bit.

The drive back up to La Paz is not one to do in a day, and so we stopped off at a nice enough river spot on Rio Pacoma, where we drove a little way down the dry bed to pull over at the side for the night.

We weren’t sure if camping would be okay here. No one else had stayed here before, but it seemed like a good spot. In the morning, when we heard a knock on the window, we were ready to be told that this was private property or something similar and that we needed to leave. In actual fact, it was a local construction worker who wanted to know if we’d seen a digger go past that morning. One of the locals did come and speak to us, but he didn’t have a problem with our camping there and invited us to his house to eat some lamb. A friendly but slightly odd thing to offer at breakfast, and we politely declined. It was time to pack away and continue north.

It was still around eight hours to the capital, and so we planned to camp a few hours south, ready to arrive the following morning. The road climbed slowly through desolate landscapes with no people or plants, just the ever-present llamas. Occasionally, a small isolated village made of red clay bricks, often seemingly deserted, would pass us by, and it continued on like this for a while as we approached the outskirts of Oruro.

It seemed that fuel would be hard to buy further north and so we pulled up at a fuel station before the city to try our luck. Lee went in with the jerry can and returned too soon, looking angry. Apparently, the lady at the pump wanted 11 bol a litre (£1.20), which is expensive even for foreign price, while the locals had called him a gringo and laughed in his face. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t too happy and we continued on towards the city.

We had heard that the best thing about Oruro was leaving it behind you, and as we approached this industrial city we could see why. It sat in clouds of its own smoke and dust, great towers reaching out of the barren ground. Through the dirty streets and wooden shanty houses, rubbish swirled and lame dogs picked their way through its remains. We definitely didn’t feel the need to stop here, and that’s what made the next series of events so much worse.

I was driving, trying to negotiate the traffic—swerving collectivos, bikes, and generally terrible drivers. I missed our turning in the chaos and started to look for a way to turn around. As I went to move across lanes, a passing collectivo decided to use a gap in the central reservation to overtake me. Neither of us stopped in time and he embedded his front bumper in Ruby’s door. It was the first time we’d had a real accident, the last minor prang having been back in Nicaragua. This wasn’t too bad, but it was a lot worse than that.

The driver got out to look at the damage, his passengers piling out of the bus, thrusting their fares at him and disappearing into the crowded streets. I would have got out, but our door was now squashed shut. Before too long, the police appeared on the scene. This really was the last thing we needed. We drove in convoy to the police station, with one of the young officers sitting in the passenger seat to point the way. Then we parked our two vans outside before following them into the building.

Two more senior officers stood behind a huge wooden desk, on top of which was a large street map. It was a generic one, showing all the different kinds of intersections you might have, rather than one of this town. On top were several small plastic cars. Clearly, this was how we would be explaining the situation. Time to see how our Spanish held up to this.

We were asked to explain what had happened, using the cars to illustrate our version. The collectivo driver was adamant that it was all my fault. I couldn’t imagine the police siding with the gringo either especially over the local workforce, so we got ready to fight our corner. It seemed that we would both explain our sides, trying to prove the other wrong. The police would then decide what percentage of the fault lay with either party. We could then go and get three different quotes from repair shops before settling our differences.

Lee went with the collectivo driver while he went to get a quote. This was supposedly to make sure that the whole thing went fairly, but we were definitely at a disadvantage here, as I’m sure he knew. We got a rough estimate of the repair costs from messaging Tacu in La Paz, but we didn’t actually have anything on paper.

Back at the office, we argued some more. The police officer invited us to pay the total bill for the other driver, which we obviously refused. Then we argued it wasn’t our fault. Apparently, they had decided we were 80% liable. We showed them some photos of Ruby’s wheels, the argument being that if we were trying to cut across the whole road, the wheels would have been on full lock—which they weren’t. Then the driver showed another photo trying to argue that they were. In his photo, you could see our indicator was on. The police then took him away into the back room and when he came out again it was now 60% our fault. We would have been happy to just call it quits; the idea of getting any money seemed very unrealistic, so we weren’t going to argue over 10%.

As the situation wasn’t progressing, the police told us they would impound the vehicles. We argued it was our house. He told us it was a car first and tried to get the keys. I refused to give them to him and for a moment I thought he was actually going to arrest me. Instead, he just started shouting that the cars would be taken for up to three months. This was not going to happen, and we could see the other driver was definitely not okay with that. He clearly couldn’t afford to be out of work for that long, and we needed to be in Peru in ten days. With this new threat hanging over us, we went to try and get ourselves a solid quote from a garage in the city.

By now, it was getting late and most places were shut. The collectivo driver had managed to get his wife there to shout at us as well, but we told her there was no space in the van and left her behind. The last thing we needed was another person. When we arrived at the garage to find it shut, we stood in the dark trying to talk some sense into the driver. We argued our repairs would cost more and so he would most likely end up giving us money, as 40% of our repairs would be more than 60% of his. We offered him 200 bol (about £20) to just call it quits. For a second we thought he was going to take it, but then common sense failed again and we all got back in Ruby and headed back to the station.

Back there again, we went around in circles. The other driver told us he had kids he needed to feed. We told him that wasn’t our problem and that gringos weren’t a free money opportunity. They offered us 500 to settle it. We refused. They begged. We held firm at 200. I was not about to be taken for a ride by someone trying to guilt-trip us for their problems. After much back and forth, we finally went to 300—£30 to get out of there that night.

Suddenly papers appeared for us to sign and our licences were returned. We shook hands and finally, after seven hours, we got out of there. It wasn’t the best result, but I think that considering the circumstances, we didn’t do too badly. We’d just have to hope that the repairs didn’t cost too much. Luckily for us, the front doors of both German and Brazilian bays are the same, and that meant the parts were available.

One of the friendlier policemen recommended we stop in a small town just half an hour away, and so we drove the short distance just to get out. Lee bought a bottle of whiskey and we sat there for a bit, processing what had just happened until the stress eased and fatigue from the day won out.