About this journey

Viacha station sits at 3,860 metres on the Bolivian altiplano, the convergence point where several Bolivian railway lines once met and where the steep 25-kilometre route into La Paz was long ago closed. It is from here that the Ferrocarril Arica–La Paz begins its Bolivian stretch, a metre-gauge line inaugurated on 13 May 1913 after construction under the Treaty of 20 October 1904 was completed by the British firm Sociedad Sir John Jackson Ltda.

The line runs 440 kilometres in total, of which 233 kilometres lie in Bolivian territory. It crosses the Andes at 4,265 metres above sea level through 7 tunnels, making it the shortest rail connection between the Pacific coast and the altiplano. Passenger services were permanently suspended in 1996, but a local ferrobus kept the Bolivian section in serviceable condition through those years, and freight traffic across the full line was reactivated on 5 May 2021.

The journey ends at Charaña, the border station where Bolivia and Chile meet between Visviri and Charaña. The station carries its own place in diplomatic history: on 8 February 1975 it hosted talks between Bolivia and Chile over a proposed corridor to the sea, negotiations that ultimately came to nothing. The ride from Viacha to Charaña moves from an altiplano rail hub through high-altitude terrain to a station weighted with unresolved geopolitics.