While having lunch in Potosi we heard on the news that “normalistas” (students studying to be teachers) have blocked the road from Oruro to La Paz. We've heard about road blocks in Bolivia before, and in fact were under impression that someone is always blocking some road in Bolivia, but the road from Oruro to La Paz was the only way to get from the part of Bolivia where we were to La Paz, northern Bolivia and then Peru, so it was getting personal. As we talked to more people, we heard stories about tourists trying to walk around road blocks and getting stones thrown at them. Most annoying was that we were about to get on a 7 hour bus to go to remote Uyuni, from which we originally planning to go to La Paz by bus (10-12 hours). If the road from Oruro was to be blocked, we would face three unpleasant options: wait in tiny Uyuni, wait in Oruro, take a bus back from Uyuni to Sucre (10-12 hours) and fly from there, or take a bus to Oruro (7 hours), then to Cochabamba (probably another 4), then fly to La Paz. Either way, we would end up losing a few days.

We ended up deciding to just to to Uyuni and hope that the situation would resolve itself before we get to Oruro. It did – the police cleared the blockade the next day.