Just a few hours ago, Barron and I found ourselves at the frontier between La Quiaca, Argentina and Villazon, Bolivia…quite literally walking across the border with a few other souls in the early dawn. (Mind you, the time was 8:00 in Argentina and 7:00 in Bolivia, but the sun rises late in this part of the world at this time of the year.) Our overnight bus ride from Salta was uneventful if less than restful, and we arrived a bit bleary-eyed and bag-laden at Bolivian immigration (along with a new acquaintance named Kat…a fabulous young woman from England who had been teaching in Buenos Aires for 4 months and is now traveling solo in Bolivia en route to meet friends in Peru). Kat passed through immigration in a matter of moments, but we needed to endure a slightly more complicated visa procedure. (Just as the U.S. requires cash payment and a formal visa application from Bolivian citizens to enter the country, so too does Bolivia require the same from U.S. citizens.) We arrived at the border quite confident that our paperwork, along with what we believed was the requisite $100 in U.S. money orders, was in order and that we would be standing on Bolivian soil in no time! As fate would have it, however, the Bolivian government had just raised the visa fee to $135 and, to make matters infinitely more complicated, requires payment in cash. (As an upside, we learned all this via a cheerful and kind immigration official, not the habitual strip-searcher we feared.)
And thus began our (or rather, Barron´s) early-morning quest to round up $270 in U.S. currency in the very small border town of Villazon. With me keeping watch over our bags in the frigidly cold immigration office, Barron set out to exchange our remaining Argentine pesos for $70 dollars at the nearest currency exchange kiosk, called ¨casas de cambio¨ (at this point, we were under the impression that we could use our $100 money orders to cover the balance). When we came up short of the requisite cash, Kat generously exchanged money of her own to make up the difference….and 20 minutes later, Barron darted back into immigration with a reassuring smile that all had gone well.
It was at this point that I had to break the news that we in fact could not use the money orders and would need yet another $200 in cash! Barron was off again to wrench dollars from the greedy mitts of the casas de cambio.¨ Another 30 minutes passed before he returned, this time with a look of exasperation. After trying 9 different exchange houses on the Bolivian border, he learned that no one would exchange the money orders and neither of the 2 ATMs in town would accept his ATM card. For a moment, we were both wondering whether we might be taking the next bus back to Salta…
But the immigration officials came through for us, suggesting that Barron return to Argentina where (because of the one-hour time difference) the banks were already open. And with that, he was off once again. It was, I must say, a somewhat strange experience to stand in the door of the Bolivian immigration office and watch Barron cross the border back into Argentina and disappear towards the promised banks beyond. After one final period of waiting, however, Barron crossed the border for the second time that morning, with a stack of pesos in hand, which he quickly exchanged at one of the Bolivian cambios for dollars.
With visa stamps in hand and just moments to spare, we rushed up the cobblestone streets of Villazon to catch the next bus north. I should add that Villazon sits at 3,340 meters above sea level. And so, at over 10,000 feet in altitude, we were a bit breathless by the time we took our seats…directly behind Kat…en route to the southernmost town of the Altiplano – Tupiza.
And it is from Tupiza we write to you now, having fared fairly well our first Bolivian bus ride on roads that are, well, a bit dodgy at times but in a bus remarkably more comfortable than Bolivian guide books would have you imagine. We are staying at a sunny, simple guesthouse (which costs about $6 per night)….the guesthouse also offers hot chocolate and scrambled eggs for breakfast (a combination that I have been dreaming of for some bizarre reason) and massage (which we may both indulge in later this evening).
Tupiza is a small town tucked into an arid red canyon and is surrounded to the south, north, and west by what we understand are some otherwordly and spectacular landscapes….turquoise high-altitude lakes, active and inactive volcanos, dry lake beds, canyons, and the list goes on. It also is an ideal place to venture into the famous Salar de Uyuni (or Salt Flat of Uyuni) to the north, as it is a far less built-up and commercialized town than Uyuni itself. Our guesthouse owners run a highly-respected guide company, and we are today investigating the possibility of venturing alone with a guide (and a very solid four-wheel drive vehicle!) into those surreal landscapes surrounding Tupiza and then moving north to the Salar de Uyuni for 3 days. It would be, I can imagine, an incredible journey….which we hope will include much hiking, photography, and simply soaking in utterly beautiful yet alien environments. (We are hoping to do all this in the most environmentally-conscious way!) In any case, if we set off in the early morning, we will most definitely be offline for a couple of days!
For now, we are simply acclimating to high altitude and the highland culture of southern Bolivia (minus the chewing of dried coca leaves)!
More soon….
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Stradling the Border
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On the Bus from Villazon to Tupiza
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