Our journey onboard the infamous “Death Train” Bolivia – OR NOT as the case may be!!
- Dave Jackson
- Oct 15, 2022
- 8 min read
Updated: Jun 9, 2023
I would love to be starting this story explaining our experiences aboard the Death Train & whether or not we advise other travellers to take this route. But alas! I can’t. Disappointingly the Tren de la Muerte hasn’t been running for 2 years apparently, although the Lonely Planet updated it’s post in March 2022 with the latest schedule??
Having had the Tren de la Muerte on our bucket list for about 6 years now (since our last trip backpacking trip around South America was curtailed) we were extremely disappointed to find out that the train is no longer running. Either way, here is our experience travelling from Corumbá to Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
Table of Contents
Where to stay in Corumbá
After finishing our time in the Pantanal in Bonito we planned just one night in Corumbá simply because the bus from Bonito runs just once a day 12pm (ish, it’s South American time!) arriving at 6:10pm & the border closes at 6pm.
We found Pousada 4 Cantos on Booking.com for R$100 for 1 night in a private double with shared bathroom. It was the cheapest option in Corumbá. The accommodation was clean, although a little dated but the owners were extremely friendly & breakfast in the morning, included in the price, set us up perfectly for our journey ahead. It was also only 10 minutes’ walk from the bus station, perfect!
Where to eat in Corumbá
We ate in ‘It’s Restaurant’ about 3 minutes’ walk from the Pousada, friendly staff, vibrant atmosphere, reasonable prices & tasty food. What else do you need.
Our Journey from Corumbá to Santa Cruz
Before setting off
We had spent countless hours trawling different blogs reading about which days the trains left, trying to plan whether we arrived on a Thursday/Friday and whether that meant we would be taking the Expresso Oriental or Ferrobus. The page most blogs quoted was Tickets Bolivia as being the best/only website to arrange your tickets in advance for the Death Train. The warning signs started early that the Death Train was not currently running having tried, on a number of occasions, to check this website for availability came back fruitless. It did however show that there were 2 buses you could book online both at 90Bs/$13.14 (per person) leaving at 6pm or 9pm with plenty of room, so we decided to head to the border, get ourselves to the train station & try to book the Tren de la Muerte on the Bolivian side. Looking on Google Maps if we went to the train station & it wasn’t an option the bus station was 2 only blocks away.
In addition to the online searches looking unhopeful, our Pousada owner had asked a friend when we arrived about booking the train ticket to Santa Cruz for us & he simply said “no train, but he could book bus tickets for $15 each”. We thanked him, declined & hoped this meant that he could not book train tickets, not that the train wasn’t running. We would stick to the plan of crossing the border & heading to the train station as so many travellers before us had done.
Getting to the Border in Corumbá
We had checked the night before for the option of Uber – all good just short of R$20, so our plan was to order an Uber in the morning, after breakfast. Unfortunately, what appeared to be the one and only Uber driver in Corumbá was refusing to take our fare 😤. After around 20 minutes of trying, we asked the owner of the pousada if he could order us a taxi & how much it would be. He rang a friend who said R$30. As we had run down our Real we only had R$27.90 left & after a bit of back & forth he agreed to the fare.
5 minutes later a car turned up, we threw our rucksacks in the boot & set off. The driver insisting, I sat in the front. We’re pretty certain this wasn’t a licenced cab but either way he took us to where we needed to go. Step one of the journey, not too much of a hiccup!