About this journey

Tupiza station sits at 2,850 m above sea level in a narrow valley carved by the Río Tupiza, a town long established as a railway, agricultural and commercial centre serving the silver, antimony, lead and zinc mining districts of the surrounding hills. In 1908 the American outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid committed their last robberies here before being cornered at the nearby mining village of San Vicente — a reminder of how remote and yet how connected this corridor once was.

From Tupiza the line climbs toward the southern Altiplano, gaining roughly 550 m as the landscape opens out from the coloured-rock quebradas of the valley floors toward the more austere terrain surrounding Villazón at 3,400 m. Passenger services over this route are operated by Empresa Ferroviaria Andina, running between Villazón and Oruro. Villazón itself was founded on 20 May 1910 during the government of Eliodoro Villazón, from whom it takes its name. The station stands as a terminal once linked by rail northward to Potosí, Oruro and La Paz, and southward all the way to Buenos Aires. Across the Río Villazón on the Argentine side lies La Quiaca in the province of Jujuy, and the border crossing here has long made this railway a conduit for passengers and traded goods between the two countries.