Oruro
The city of Oruro was founded on November 1st, 1606 by Don
Manuel Castro de Padilla. The city was formally born as Real Villa de Don Felipe de
Austria, in honor of then Spanish monarch Felipe III. Oruro owes its existence to the
discovery in the early 1605 of rich silver-concentrated minerals in the Urus region, where
the city derives its name from. During the 17th century, Oruro became the largest city in
the Alto Peru region.
However, exhaustive mining activities exclusively on silver
extraction prompted Indian workers to moved on to more lucrative prospects. Oruro became
then an abandoned city. Oruro revived as a mining town by the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, this time with the production of tin. In 1887, Simon
I. Patiño, later one of the wealthiest men in the world, bought La Salvadora, a tin
mine located east of the city of Oruro. Later on, La Salvadora became the world's most
productive tin mine. Currently, Oruro in not the prosperous city it use to be long time
ago and certainly is not one of the fastest growing cities in the country. By November
1996, according to data from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), Oruro's population was composed by 199,260
inhabitants.
The city of Oruro lies north of the salty lakes Uru-Uru and
Poopó and it is just three hours (by bus) south from La Paz. Located at an altitude of
3709 above sea level, Oruro its well known for its cold weather. Warmer temperatures
generally take place during August, September and October, after the worst of the winter
chills and before the summer rains. From May to early July, night time temperatures
combined with cool wind can bring the temperature down to about -40 C. Summers are warmer,
but despite the fact of being an arid area, there's quite a lot of rainfall between
November and March.
By land:
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From La Paz: 230 Km by asphalt
roads |
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From Cochabamba: 212 Km by asphalt
road |
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From Potosí 321 Km by rubble and
asphalt roads |
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From Sucre: 349 Km by rubble road |
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From Pisiga (Chilean border): 233
Km by rubble road |
By train:
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La Paz - Oruro |
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Potosí- Río Mulatos - Oruro |
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Villazón (Argentinean border) - Tupiza - Uyuni
- Río Mulatos - Oruro |
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Est. Avaroa (Chilean border) -
Uyuni - Río Mulatos - Oruro |
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Charaña (Chilean border) -
Soledad - Oruro |
By air:
Private jets and air taxies only
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Carnival Festivities: Annual
celebration consisting of brightly custom-dressed dancers performing a wide variety of
dances depicting archangels, devils, Incas, Spanish conquistadors etc. The festivities
begin the first Saturday before Ash Wednesday. Also know as the Diablada |
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Museo Patiño:
Former residence of "tin baron" Simon Patiño |
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Museo Mineralógico:
(Mining Museum) Exhibits of precious stones, minerals, and fossils. |
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Museo Etnográfico Minero:
Housed in a mine tunnel, depicts methods of Bolivian mining |
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Museo Nacional
Antropológico: (Anthropological Museum) Displays tools and information on the
Chipayas and Urus tribes |
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Churches: Main
plaza cathedral, Santuario de la Virgen del Socavón, Iglesia de Cunchupata |
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Mines: Inti Raymi |
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Content:
See also the following related sections:
WHERE TO GO?
Index of Cities:
Cobija
Cochabamba
La Paz
Oruro
Potosí
Santa Cruz
Sucre
Tarija
Trinidad
THE BOOK CLUB
Going to Bolivia?
More Locations
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