Super Traveling Allstar
After the girls left, I took the next bus to the border of Bolivia. When I got off the bus, I was surrounded by bicycle taxis offering me a ride to the border. “Why would I pay you to take me one block when I could walk it just as easily?” They had no good answer for me. I joked and talked with them for a little while, helping one with his English pronounciation, and walked my way to the border. Once again, leaving Peru, I was stopped by the Peruvian police (this was a different border than I was at before, so the deal I struck for them not to check me next time didn’t apply.)
It was all the same. However, I had read in one of April’s travel guides that sometimes the border police are looking for “fake” American bills (that of course are not fake) that they confiscate from you for possessing.
They asked me if I had any cocaine or marijuana. No. “But a lot of people in the United States use these drugs, right?” Well, not really…it depends on the people. I answered the man’s questions while intently keeping my eye on his parter’s hands rustling though my bag, making sure he wasn’t slipping anything in my bag that he could later “find” and charge me. I have to admit, being by myself this time, I was a little more nervous, but I think I still played it pretty cool.
They told me to empty my pockets, and I did. “Do you have anything around your waist?” They were looking for my money belt, which was around my leg…No.”Any American dollars?” No, I said, knowing they were in the money belt on my leg. “Any credit cards?” Yes, just one in my bag there (knowing, again, that I had more in my money belt.) And then they let me go…
Across the border, I jumped in a minivan to La Paz. I asked the attendant woman where it would drop us off in La Paz. Cementerio. That’s what I was afraid of…Cementerio was where I had the mustard thrown on me, and was a place that was notorious for kidnapping tourists in recent times (although this was not all that common, it still happened, particularly at night, which it now was). I expressed my concern with that area and I heard a voice from the back of the bus: “Then we’ll go in a group.” I tell you, these Bolivians are so nice.
We didn’t end up going in a group, but the locals put me in a radio taxi (which are safer), and told me they would call to check on me, whatever that means. I went to the bus station to find out times for the next day. I was either going to Rurrenabaque to go on a jungle tour, or I was going to head to Argentina; I would make up my mind that night.
At the hotel, with all the bus information, I thought about what I really should do. While I really wanted to go out to the jungle (something I missed, going on an actual jungle trek, pirhana fishing…all that), I was concerned about the time that was needed to get out there, go on the tour, and then get back to La Paz in enough time to go to Buenos Aires. I had something like 11 days to do all of it, before new guests (Pompei, Rukman, and Eli) were going to arrive. I decided it was best to just get into Argentina. I was worried about the possibility of bus (or other) strikes in Bolivia, which are very common, which would leave me stuck in Bolivia. Bolivia is not the place to be in a hurry.
The next day I walked to get a paper and I noticed that most of the shops were closed. It was really quiet on the street. I read the paper over breakfast and learned that it was International Labor Day and that Evo Morales would be speaking in the plaza a block away at noon. This also was the “Day without an Immigrant” in the States, and Chicago was the main city in the Internation headlines, of which I was proud.
Sidenote here: After doing some research about International Labor Day (May 1st), I came to learn that this originated in response to the Haymarket Riots in Chicago. Despite the American roots, the holiday does not exist in the States (we have our own Labor Day at the end of summer). Apparently, during the Red Scare, they changed this holiday due to the Socialist undertones and ideals it promoted. Interesting, anyway. I looked in my Lonely Planet book, and sure enough, that’s a holiday in every South American country…
I walked to the main plaza and watched as people gathered; it was still early before Evo would arrive. I wanted to take the afternoon bus, so I didn’t stay to watch Evo (little did I know that would end up being a huge day in Bolivia’s history, when Evo announced the nationalization of their natural resources, with natural gas being the big one). I talked with some people and headed back to pack up my things.
As I checked out of my hotel, the guy at the desk asked me where I was going. “Argentina, I think.” He told me there’s an indefinite bus strike, as of today. “Why?” They don’t want to pay taxes. (Who does?) He told me I’d just have to see at the bus terminal.
I walked to the terminal, passing through parades of marching Bolivians on their way to the plaza, amid random fireworks being blown off everywhere. Sure enough, the bus terminal was dead, save for some tax officials walking around, as well as some unsuspecting gringos and locals walking around with their bags. I asked one lady working if there would be any buses out tomorrow, and she told me there would be. I sat down to consider my options while watching Evo’s speech on TV and listening to Slim Shady on the jukebox (I think the security guards were having fun): either wait until tomorrow, when there may or may not be buses running (I had one person tell me yes, one person no), or go the long way to Mendoza, Argentina. Another guy came up to me and asked where I wanted to go; he told me that the strike was indeed indefinite, and so my mind was made up. I had a few days of traveling ahead of me, so I picked up my bag and headed off.
I took a cab to the place where the minibuses leave to Peru (the exact return route I had done the night before). I crossed the border (where I again had no problems…apparently the Peruvian border police only like to check people as their leaving Peru, which makes no sense to me). I inquired about buses to Tacna (the Peruvian border with Chile), and had a bicylce taxi take me to the bus office on the other side of town.
The buses weren’t leaving until that night, so I had a good 8 hours to kill in a nothing border town, which was also on holiday. Everyone was hanging out in the street, in little groups, drinking (Peruvian women in their traditional clothes and men in suits, mostly). A Peruvian man from Tacna joined me for lunch and we walked around a bit, until I found an internet cafe to waste my day in (it was cold, and these places were warm, so it was hard to leave). I did end up spending the last 2 hours freezing in the bus office, waiting for the bus to arrive.
There was a lot of confusion about seats, which was really due to people claiming seats that weren’t theirs and refusing to move. I was in my correct seat, but somehow was brought into it; I finally switched seats with a woman on the verge of tears because she wanted to sit next to her husband; fair enough. I was just glad to be warm and continuing on my way…I didn’t care where I sat.
The bus arrived very early in Tacna (about 4:30am); I took a taxi to the bus station and got a bus to the border. I filled out my paperwork and offered my pen to the woman next to me. “Oh no. I can’t fill it out while the bus is moving. You do it for me.” OK. Name. She gave me her name. Last name. Done. Second last name. She said it and I asked her to spell it. “I don’t know how.” OK…you don’t know how to spell your name…let’s work this out. She took the pen and wrote it on her hand, and I copied it on the paper.
We got to the border and stopped. The bus turned off its engine. We were behind 6 or 7 other buses, and the line behind us was quickly forming…there must have been about 30-50 cars and buses behind us now. I looked at my watch. 6:20. The border opened at 7. I felt like it was already 10:00…I got out of the bus to find my favorite breakfast of a pastel (fried dough, essentially) and api (a drink made of purple or white corn with cinnamon), but there was none left, and I was kind of disappointed, knowing that my last opportunity to have it had passed. I was a little nostalgic about leaving the Andean countries…I had been there now for a while, and I knew I would be in larger, more developed urban areas for pretty much the rest of my time in South America.
The border crossing into Chile wasn’t bad, it was just long. At the bus station in Arica (Chile), I arranged for a bus to Santiago. It would take 27 hours and was leaving in an hour. Bring on more bus.
The bus ride was long and uneventful for the most part. I had an aisle seat (no window view), right in front of a smelly bathroom and by the loud motor in the back, making it impossible to hear the movies played on the TV or even the guy next to me. We had to go through a customs check before we even entered the bus (I had just done that at the border), and then another one as we passed from Region I to Region II (they have regions, like we have states; most of the regions are numbered). As I asked my seat partner about why there was so much customs inspection, he told me about what he had seen once. A woman was carrying a baby and hit the baby’s head really hard. Everyone sort of noticed that the baby didn’t cry given such a huge blow to the head. It turns out that the baby was dead and it was filled inside with drugs. Ew!
For some reason I had to switch buses a few hours outside of Santiago, but I finally (finally!)got there. The total bus ride took about 30 hours, not including the ride from La Paz to Peru, then within Peru to the border with Chile, and the Chilean border crossing (and, of course, the original bus rides from Puno, Peru to La Paz). I had now been traveling almost 3 1/2 days straight, with 2 nights straight on buses, and was pretty ready to be done with it. My right knee was cramped (enough for me to have a slight limp). I took a shower, ate, and was happy to go to bed.
Tags: Bolivia, Chile, Tag Index
Tania