It’s 11pm on a Friday night in Cochabamba bus terminal. Around me, my friends are sprawled on the concrete of the traffic apron, wrapped in blankets, passing a bottle of singani and waiting for a bus that will never come. We are trying to travel to Oruro for its famous Carnaval celebrations, but like hundreds of others, we are stuck. This is because lorry drivers are protesting the way Bolivians like best: by blocking roads. In this case, they have blocked almost every major road in the country.
The bus station is lined with families ignominiously bedded down on cardboard. One woman is slouched in a corner, sewing sequins onto an elaborate dancing costume by hand. ‘We’ve been here for four days,’ says another, her face a mixture of desperation and stoicism.
