TAMBO QUEMADO

TAMBO QUEMADO

February 8 1995

Did somebody say there was a road from Bolivia to the Chilean border?  A ROAD?  A Track? a trail?  They are making a road, it is true, but that is surely not quite the same thing!  

The new road from Cochabamba to La Paz is fine, but, of course, we had to leave that at Patacamaya where there is a sign to Puerto Japonés (What Japanese would be mad enough to come there remains a mystery to me), but a lady told us it was better to continue a little and take another road to the left at a bar where the buses stop.  We did that and were confronted by a multiplicity of dirt tracks.  Asking one man whether this was the road to Chile he replied "Claro que sí".  What was so clear about it continues to elude me, but he obviously thought it was clear enough.  We continued along the track and some time later came upon road building machinery.  That was fine because, although the surface was not asphalted, it was firm.  However, the smooth going did not last long.  The road works stopped and tyre tracks ran here and there all over the altiplano where truck drivers had obviously taken the most convenient route when it was raining.  We chose one and carried on.  

Not a living soul.  Very little in the way of vegetation, just sparse scrub.  Miles between one adobe hut and the next.  A dry salt lake.  The track got worse - ruts larger, deeper, sandier.  We stopped and Robert got out to ask some girls and a lady at a hut if this was the right way to Chile.  The girls ran away to hide and the old lady sat hunkered down at the door, impassive.  She could not help anyway because she only spoke Aymara.  Eventually the two girls, having wrapped themselves up in their cardigans and pulled their skirts down as far as they could, confirmed that the track in front of their hut, not the one behind which we were on, did indeed go to Chile.  Worse and worse.  Robert got out at another hut where he could see an old man herding llamas a little way away.  At the sight of this bearded stranger  a clutch of little children scrambled off and hid in the hut, all darkness and misery.  When he reached him, the old man was no use as a source of information because he was stone deaf and probably only spoke Aymara anyway.  Some distance later I got out and asked a lady with two young children minding their llamas.  Yes, right road but a long, long way to go.   On and on.  Worse and worse  - relieved only by the elegance of the llamas grazing on the sparse vegetation.

We were on the point of turning back to Oruro and trying the road to Iquique the next day when a pick-up truck appeared out of nowhere - the first vehicle we had seen since we left the road-building team behind.   This was the old road to Chile but it was dreadful, they said, and we would do better to go back and try and get on to the new road.  We would come to a hut with tyres outside.  There there was a track to the left.  If we took that, we would eventually come to the new road.  We took their advice.

In fact there was only one tyre outside the hut, empty except for a few chickens sheltering from the sweltering heat.  We stopped.  A campesino was walking in our direction.  Maybe he would know how to reach the new road.   He did.  He would come with us, so I gave him the front seat to act as guide.  Down the track, just as the men in the truck had told us, but the track did not last long.  Cross country. He had been walking all day long because he had come to visit a relative and was now on his way back home.  No schools here.  No doctor.  No nothing.  Survive or die.  Down a steep incline like a V which we thought we would never get out of - but fortunately we did.  The campesino got out at the place most convenient to him, rejoicing in his ride and informing us that we would soon reach the new road.  We did.  At times like this the power of prayer and hope and the realization of our powerlessness in the face of Nature are more than abundantly clear.  The certainties of urban life have no place in these bleak surroundings where nothing is foreseeable except the harshness of life and the inhospitable landscape.


Suddenly before us was a road block with more road-building equipment.  Sorry you cannot pass.  But we want to get to Tambo Quemado to get into Chile.  Fine, but not on this road.  How do we get there? On the old road.  Not on your life!  We have just come from there and it is impassable.  Impasse.  Argue, cajole.  Then the engineer in charge appeared on the scene.  United Nations.  Going to Chile.  Persuade, persuade.  O.K.  You can go.  The reason why we have the block up is that there were so many trucks coming and going that they were ruining our work before we had finished it.  We understand.  Thanks a million.  Off we went.

Some kilometres further on another block manned by a ruffian and his apprentice.  You can´t pass.  It ‘s forbidden.  We know that, but at the last block they gave us special permission to pass.  Where is your written authorization?  We haven´t got one.  Well, you will have to drive back and ask the "licenciado" for one.  There is no licenciado there.  He is an engineer and he has given us permission to pass.  Negative response, waiting for a backhander.  Lift that barrier and let us pass.  Finally we blunderbussed him into opening up the block.  Then, not long after - dismay! - a fork.  Which one to take?  Nothing for it.  Back to the ruffian.  The apprentice immediately chirped up that it was the road to the left.  However, since we had no confidence in the accuracy of this information as they were mad at having to let us through, Robert insisted, asking them their names  and reminding them that they had no idea of who they were talking to and that they ought to bear in mind that if the information was wrong they were both very liable to lose their jobs.  At that, the same ruffian´s apprentice vounteered that it was in fact the right fork.  Which piece of information to believe?

We were inclined to think that the latter was more likely to be correct, but another vehicle came by and took the left fork so we decided to check that out first since there was a kind of camp not too far away.  A truck driver at the camp was able to tell us that it was indeed the right fork so we turned around again.  Again the road disappeared and the solitude and heat of the altiplano in mid-afternoon weighed down heavier than ever.  The perfectly conical snow-capped peak of the Parinacota Volcano on the right and twin volcanos with their flattened crater tops on the left grew nearer, which was a comfort.  Time wore on and we ate up kilometres.  Silence.  Solitude and emptiness.  At last the road-building team again.  Another two hours to the border.  It was now 4p.m. and 8 hours since we had left Cochabamba.  On we plodded.  More road-building.  I never thought I would be so glad to see road-builders, the only sign of  another living soul in that landscape of vast empty flatness punctuated by  tortured volcanic protuberances.  

The members of these road-building gangs are reminiscent of the pioneers of the Wild West building the railroad: colourful characters each with his own particular eccentricity.  One we stopped to ask for information was a Brazilian engineer with his front teeth missing and a huge straw hat with multicoloured scarves entwined around the brim and streaming out behind him in the brisk breeze of the altiplano.  Although it was hot - about 33ºC - most of the men were wearing balaclava helmets to cover their noses in an attempt to avoid breathing in some of the dust which blew thick all around.   Another gang.  This time, more precise information.  18 kilometres to Tambo Quemado said the engineer after a swift calculation.  Thank God.  The sun was now low in the sky and we were anxious to reach the border before nightfall.  

Then disaster.  Some kilometres further on all progress was halted because a huge truck had got bogged down in the sand and they were trying to dig it out.  We could take a track to the left, or we could wait.  We decided to wait because we had been told that this new road would take us direct to the border whereas there was no guarantee where the other route would land us and there were not many minutes of daylight left.  


The men dug and dug until the rear right wheel was free of sand.  Then they threw huge rocks down and manoeuvred them in under the wheel in the midst of a swirling dust storm which obliterated everything.  The sand scratched the skin like sandpaper.  When that was done, a machine backed down and the truck was tied to it.  Pull, pull.  Wheels spinning.   Back down again.  Pull some more until at last the wheels started to turn and slowly the machine and truck emerged from the dip and the rut.  Next an earth-moving machine went in to pound a huge rock into the sand and flatten the way for other vehicles.  Finally, after half an hour or so, we were on our way once more.  

At last, with the last rays of daylight we reached Tambo Quemado, a desolate, forlorn cluster of adobe huts at an altitude of 4,660m.  On the right all the official buildings - Customs, Immigration, Police.  The cold wind tore at our thin clothing as we got out to proceed with all the formalities.  We were too impatient to be gone to bother to rummage around in the luggage in search of warmer things. Passports, permit to take the vehicle out of the country.  The village children,  drawn by this new attraction with two dogs, came running out from under the wheels of all the trucks waiting on the far side of the border.  Much hilarity greeted Simon's frantic barking and hands pressed against the windows were a further provocation.  Papers and more papers.  Finally the formalities were completed.  No, you cannot check the vehicle.  We have diplomatic immunity.  Ah well, then how about some cooperation?  What does that mean, asked Robert, knowing full well what it meant.  Well, something for the wawas (children).  Sixty bolivianos did the trick and they went off as happy as Larry.

The barrier pole lifted and we started off once more, buoyed up at the prospect of reaching the surfaced road on the Chilean side.  But where was it?  A rutted track was all there was and it seemed to go for miles.  Getting dark now.  At last half way across the seemingly endless no-man´s land on the Bolivian side the dirt track was suddenly  transformed into an asphalt road.  What joy!  What relief!  

At 8:15p.m. (one hour later Chilean time) in the pitch black we reached the Chilean border post.  Here all is order and cleanliness, all the more striking in comparison with the dilapidated installations on the Bolivian side.   The first building on the left is the carabinero post.  No, you must first go to the Immigration Office.  Passports, papers.  Customs.  Temporary import licence for the car.  No, you cannot check the luggage.  We have diplomatic immunity.  Well, all right then.  Sanitary Authorities.  Dog health certificates and international travel papers.  Finally back again to the police office.  Driving licence.  At last, half an hour later we were free to resume our journey.

From the travel information provided by the Chilean Consulate in La Paz we knew that there was a camp site near the border and this had been confirmed by the policemen at the border post, but it was so dark that we decided that the surest thing would be to continue to the nearest village,  Putre, some 50 kilometres away.  Mounted police along the road gave us instructions and told us to ask again at the military barracks some way down the road.  More information, all accurate, and at long last, at 10:15p.m. exactly fourteen hours after leaving Cochabamba, heads pounding from the altitude, we reached the hotel in Putre.  

In Chile they put the clocks forward by an hour in summertime so it was 11:15p.m. Despite this, they prepared some vegetables and hot milk and honey for us.  The temperature now was a chilling minus 3ºC, a far cry from the scorching 33ºC of the afternoon.  Turning on the heater in the room we prepared to rest.  Sleep was difficult because our pulse was racing from the altitude and we had to make an effort to breathe deeply to get enough oxygen from the thin air.  But the bed was welcome and our relief at having accomplished the arduous trip were reward enough.

That is the chronicle of the first day of our holidays.