With time on our hands before our train to Oruro we were able to prepare for the trip, I telephoned home to wish my Mum a happy birthday - unfortunately I only got the answer phone, I guess they were out celebrating. George, Claire and myself checked out of the hotel and walked across the road to the station in good time for our train. The platform slowly filled over the next half hour with "gringos" and locals and the train arrived on time - S.A. time, pretty good only 20 minutes late. We found our carriage and seats and settled down to wait for another 30 minutes until we slowly pulled out of the station, our next and final stop would be Oruro. We passed the journey listening to music, reading and watching the wonderful scenery unfold in front of us.

After eight hours we arrived in Oruro and joined the scrum that is baggage claim - the idea being: 1) you see your bag, 2)thrust your baggage ticket at the porter, 3) repeatedly shout "senor, senor", 4)whilst pointing at the desired item - action 1 appears to be optional. Then negotiate the vulture like taxi drivers, negotiate a price and hope to arrive at your destination in one piece, additional points are awarded for keeping your luggage, bonus points if you also have someone else's. Four of us (George, Sarah, Claire and myself) piled in to the taxi for the trip to the bus station - George and Sarah were to continue their journey on to La Paz and Claire and I stopped over night at the Hotel Bernal. Top tip - don't sit in the front seat of taxis in Bolivia - give way and traffic lights do not exist at cross roads (unless its the main road in La Paz), its all a matter of flashing your headlights (normally switched off), honking the horn and bullying your way across. I guess the survival rate for those in the front is on a par with a London motorcycle courier.

At the bus station we said our goodbyes and walked the short distance to our hotel where we checked in and retired to our room - what is that smell? Are there any dead animals in here? The smell is attributed to bad plumbing and we set off in search of La Cena - dinner to you and me. The first restaurant we find is open but not serving food, across the square is another restaurant which looks cheap and has a living human being eating on its premises. Taking a chance we enter and ask if they are serving La Cena - yes they do and we are seated, but rather than getting a menu we are served the first course of the today's meal offer: watery chicken soup, Claire opts not to eat the chicken pieces, I decide to take a leap of faith and eat the fatty substances. The second course appears to be a leg of chicken, but its not chicken as the meat is too dark, rice (that's the best part), a slice of fried potato and two slices of raw tomato. I quarantined the tomato ate the fowl, rice and potato. If you are reading this then we're still alive. Back to the room where the smell has got worse - bring on La Paz.