The Death Train!

Yep, you guessed it, the 21 hour train journey that I referred to in the previous post was indeed aboard something called "The Death Train".

I decided to wait until after we completed the journey before mentioning this, so as not to worry any parents who may well have questioned our choice of transportation. The fact is however that the Death Train is now very safe, and it is the only real overland option from Corumba in Brazil to Santa Cruz in Bolivia.

The Death Train is so called because in the past it was used to smuggle vast quantities of illegal (and on very rare occasions - legal) merchandise between Bolivia and Brazil. It was also a very popular transportation route, and so in days gone by, they used to cram as many people and contraband as possible onto the train for every journey. Those people who could not fit into the carriages used to ride on top.

Over the 21 hour journey many of these people would fall off, or fall asleep then fall off. Also, since the train was so overloaded, it would often derail. This used to cause a fair amount of death ... hence "Death Train".

Nowadays everyone gets a ticket and a seat number, so we weren't especially concerned. We did however, shamefully, go first class, as we'd heard 2nd class involved more of a bench than a seat, very few opportunities for sleep, and a much higher probability of farmyard animals.


The journey itself was fine, the only real difficulties being the intense cold (before they turned the heating on), the intense heat (after they turned the heating on) and the many food sellers who would get on and scream into your face just as you'd got to sleep.

Oh yes and then there was the TV. We were originally very happy to see there was a TV on board, but slightly less so when we saw the film choices ... "The Best of Steven Seagal Box Set". Mercifully we had some sleeping pills.