Miscellaneous photos of La Paz, Bolivia

Rem Sapozhnikov / February 2008
Right here, in La Paz you can buy tickets for the train going from Oruro to the south.

Put down the address:
"Empresa Ferroviaria Andina"
Calle Fernando Guachalla # 494 esq. Sanchez Lima, Zona Sopocachi
Tel: (2) 2416545, (2) 2419763


Just in case, here is the telephone number and address in Oruro:

Avda. Velasco Galvarro S/N entre Aldana. (railway station address)
Tel: (2) 5274605


Theoretically you can book tickets via e-mail.
There is an e-mail for the purpose: pasajeros@fca.com.bo

But in reality everything is different. As it was found out, certain Jose Luis Vasquez is responsible for booking, who either gives a quick reply, or disappears for quite some time.

By phone, when you succeed in getting through, they refuse to book tickets: they claim they only provide this service via internet. When you tell them you have already been waiting for the e-mail reply for the complete week, they beg pardon, after a couple of hours send the e-mail requesting for data and disappear again!

15 days after we started correspondence, one day before the departure, Jose Luis Vasquez sent me a «cheerful» letter, saying «they are sorry» but «there are no tickets for the train». It was good that I got suspicious of his incompetency long before and on my arrival to La Paz, I, first of all, went to get tickets for the train from Oruro. Just 3 days prior to the required date. By the way, unlike the booking offices in Oruro there are no lines at all in La Paz.

Having reached Oruro, I went to the trouble of going to the railway station administration and finding that Jose Luis Vasquez. I was very much curious to find out why, for 15 days he hooked me off with tickets. Making excuses and looking into the eyes, he lied that some computer system was out of order for 15 days.



Bronze monument to the national hero Eduardo Abaroa Monument to Eduardo Abaroa
Just in two quarters (walking down the hill) from the railway booking offices there is an Eduardo Abaroa square.

Bronze monument to the national hero Eduardo Abaroa is made in clearly accusatory key. Abaroa was not a professional soldier, but when Bolivia was attacked by Chile (Pacific war, 1879-1883) he took rifle in his hands and donated all his property for weapon and outfit for self defence unit. Abaroa died in the very beginning of the war, defending the Bolivian positions on the approaches to the city Calama (presently Chilean) in the vicinity of Atacama. The monument is really impressive: mortally wounded hero having risen for a moment, implacably points to the direction of the country that usurped the Bolivian lands. They say that in the initial variant of the monument the accusing forefinger of Abaroa was disproportionately big. The city committee on «accepting» the sculpture, having agreed that the idea is original, still insisted on giving the forefinger «more verisimilitude». The author of Bolivian sculpture Emiliano Lujan Sandoval (1910-1975), reluctantly agreed, but in the «lighter» version the finger of hero Abaroa looks menacing.



Wall painting on the Arce street:

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Continuation :
Hotels of La Paz




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