The Death Train
The street cars of La Paz Bolivia is a vast country nearly void of effective transportation. Highways are often little more than dirt tracks that are closed from transit large parts of the year. Like many colonial nations in Africa once the colonizers departed so did the infrastructure. Once upon a time in La Paz street cars traversed the cities. Images from the past have a strange tendency to seem more refined and more organized than images from the present. While Bolivia achieved independence in 1825 the colonial occupiers should be redefined from nations to commercial interests. There was once a rail road that threatened to connect the country but never did. Part of it stretches through the Andean highlands connecting Chile and Argentina with Oruro, La Paz and Cochabamba. A second part of a different gauge runs from Santa Cruz to the Bolivia - Brazil border town of Puerto Suarez and south to Paraguay. A third and fascinating railroad was constructed in the far nort