Around the Block 2007

Of course I didnīt write last night's blog from the train....  Last night was ONLY THE BEGINNING when I left off yesterday's blog.....

About midnight the train stops, really stops.  One of the diesel engines that runs the electrical generators to power the wheels has gone KAPUT.  The remaining one is not enough to pull us forward.  And we are out on a single rail with other trains coming!  The answer: GO BACKWARDS!  For 2 hours in the dark (just when we were making a little headway) until the last station with the double track, and wait for a new engine to come!  At least it is quiet and we can sleep...  except that the baby up front begins crying, sensing that something is wrong and cannot sleep without the BANG, BANG, BANG of the uneven tracks....  About that "train of death" thing......

Then it gets cold.

About 4 am the other engine car arrives and hooks up to the front of the bad car.  Great!  Now we will be pulling an EXTRA 73 tons uphill !  This should really get us there fast!  And at every stop a dozen kids and women get on board and run up and down thru all the cars yelling, trying to sell coffee and tea out of 5 gal gasoline cans and meat pies ("empanadas") out of a basket.  Not that we can sleep, but at least we won't starve!  Maybe in the baggage car with the motos.....

Our "planned arrival time" (a "no-no" in South America) of 8 am comes and goes...  There is NOTHING to see out the window except the road that we are glad we are not riding on.  Swampland and brush forever!  Finally, we arrive at 4 pm, wait for the bikes to be unloaded (evidently the "loading and unloading" cost was not included in the shipping cost!).  Tanks are dry so Luke runs off with a large Coke bottle for gas.  We finally make it downtown (it was the OPPOSITE way from what the "Rough Guide to South America" said) and find "Hostal Bolivar", the best kept secret in Santa Cruz.  We find all our friends from the train there!  So much for it being a secret!

But the price is right.  Finally clean again and some REAL sleep.......

NEXT DAY: day34insantacruz.htm

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