When I woke up in the morning, the first piece of news was that the road was open again. So we all waited patiently until the bus was scheduled to arrive in Jujuy... and then waited some more. At about 9am, I went to retrieve my phone that I had been charging in the terminal office. When the staff there heard that we were all waiting to go to San Pedro de Atacama, they broke the bad news to us: the open road was the one to Bolivia; the road to Chile would remain closed for at least another three to five days.
Staying in Jujuy didn't seem like an attractive option; there isn't really a lot to do in the city, and everybody had already explored the nearby Humahuaca gorge.
So suddenly everyone was weighing their options. Some opted to go back to Salta, others to Mendoza. But most thought about going to Bolivia first, and from there back to northern Chile. Considering that I want to be in Oruro, Bolivia, for carnival, I didn't really have time to hang around Jujuy for days. So I, too, decided to skip Chile for now and head to Bolivia.
I had expected that we wouln't get any refund for the bus ticket to San Pedro de Atacama, but thanks to the help of some Spanish speakers in our group, we found out that we could get a refund of 70%. The refunding process took ages, and all the time they tried to convince us that the road would be opened again soon... But by that time, we had heard that story once too often to still believe in it.
At a news stand in the bus terminal, I found that the landslide even made it to the local newspaper. Apparently, several villages along the road had been cut off from the rest of the country.
From the bus to the Bolivian border, we got a good view of the cleared-up landslides. Even on the cleared road, they looked quite dramatic. At one point they had to improvise a detour due to the masses of rocks and earth on the road:
Late in the evening, we finally reached the Bolivian border. The buses don't cross the border here; you have to get out at the bus terminal in La Quiaca, Argentina, walk to the border, and arrive in Villazón, Bolivia, after the formalities. The crossing was uneventful and quick: absolutely zero waiting time! I guess not having to wait for an entire busload of people finishing immigration has its advantages :-)
Staying in Jujuy didn't seem like an attractive option; there isn't really a lot to do in the city, and everybody had already explored the nearby Humahuaca gorge.
So suddenly everyone was weighing their options. Some opted to go back to Salta, others to Mendoza. But most thought about going to Bolivia first, and from there back to northern Chile. Considering that I want to be in Oruro, Bolivia, for carnival, I didn't really have time to hang around Jujuy for days. So I, too, decided to skip Chile for now and head to Bolivia.
I had expected that we wouln't get any refund for the bus ticket to San Pedro de Atacama, but thanks to the help of some Spanish speakers in our group, we found out that we could get a refund of 70%. The refunding process took ages, and all the time they tried to convince us that the road would be opened again soon... But by that time, we had heard that story once too often to still believe in it.
At a news stand in the bus terminal, I found that the landslide even made it to the local newspaper. Apparently, several villages along the road had been cut off from the rest of the country.
From the bus to the Bolivian border, we got a good view of the cleared-up landslides. Even on the cleared road, they looked quite dramatic. At one point they had to improvise a detour due to the masses of rocks and earth on the road:
Late in the evening, we finally reached the Bolivian border. The buses don't cross the border here; you have to get out at the bus terminal in La Quiaca, Argentina, walk to the border, and arrive in Villazón, Bolivia, after the formalities. The crossing was uneventful and quick: absolutely zero waiting time! I guess not having to wait for an entire busload of people finishing immigration has its advantages :-)
