More Fun With Borders

As loyal readers of this blog (all 2 of you) know, my least favorite place to be in South America is at an international border. They're dirty, crowded, and full of criminals and con-artists. At least Ecuador to Peru was, and I seriously was not looking forward to going from Peru into Bolivia.

Rather than take my chances by doing the border manually again, I decided to book an international bus. We'd stay on the bus, and all things would be taken care of quickly and professionally... yeah.

I had intended to go the direct southern route to La Paz, skipping the famous-yet-allegedly-shitty Copacabana (no, not that one). The man from the hostel, the one who sold me the Titicaca tour, was also the one who convinced me that the company that connects through Copacabana is cheaper and better. Cheaper, yes, but that rarely means better in any continent, let alone here. And yet, I relented. I was very tired that morning. Besides, a short layover and a bus switch is no big deal, and I may enjoy an hour or so in the little coastal town.

The bus doesnt actually reach Copacabana. No, it stops just shy of the Bolivian border and waits for passengers to come to it. Normally we could go through Copacobana, and on to La Paz, but an all-too-common worker's strike - this time by the ferry workers who cross the small water isthmus - leaves Copacabana an island unto itself.

So we waited in the small border zone between the countries, passing freely into Bolivia (well, about 50 feet). The border zone is shockingly nice, a pretty green area on the shore of the giant lake, an old arch and older church to mark the boundry, cheap food vendors and seemingly honest money changers. Best of all were the clothing booths; I and some people I'd met on the bus spent our time trying on all kinds of crazy hats. A cowboy hat with llamas, a traditional Andean cap in a lovely shade of puke green, a pink ski/Santa hat with big poof ball on the end, and the one I bought, an alpaca wool brimmed beanie, all the colors of the rainbow (with a special emphasis on pink). Only $1.30 US. It now supplants my cashmere scarf as the gayest item of clothing I own. And yet, I feel compelled to wear it for my duration in Bolivia. People keep giving me weird looks. Lets hope I dont get fag bashed.

We waited here for the people coming from Copacabana, we played with hats. We waited, we gorged ourselves on cheap junk food, chatted up the military guards, explored the frontier, anything we could. We waited, we waited, we wanted to kill ourselves and the driver. The border zone really was lovely, for half an hour. Not two and a half.

But finally, the Copacabana cohort came, and we're off to the southern border zone. Just a few miles south. Just a brief retreat from the lakeside... to a different country. The northern zone was open, clean, and friendly; the southern zone was dark, windy, trashy, decayed, full of predatory types, with more than a passing resemblance to its far northern cousin.

First stop is Peruvian exits. I'd long ago discarded my pointless-seeming entry card, and now needed a new one to leave. Five bucks for a copy, the man behind the counter says. He scrawls his copy, making up most of the information, in under 20 seconds.

Next stop is Bolivia. True to form, the bus driver lied; we need to walk across a little bridge (deja vu!) and take a new bus on the other side. I don't care much because I'm thinking about what's coming next: the visa. Everyone else on earth gets into Bolivia for cheap, or free. US citizens pay $135 dollars, retribution from the Bolivian government for some perceived wrong by the horrible capitalist evil empire. Ironically, its the hippy liberal leftist backpackers who pay for it.

My one fellow American and I get shuffled into a side room to fill out our visa application. The application asks a series of asinine questions that no one will ever read; I scratch out my answers illegibly and no one cares. All the border official keeps saying is "Where is the money?", smiling greedily with grotesque poorly-capped teeth. The other American had one of his $20s rejected for having a millimeter-sized tear; I wonder if he'd noticed if I used some of my souvenirs picked up from the last border.

Next step is to go to the main window and get an entry stamp. Again, us Americans are shuttered into a back room, where a breezy looking man, probably ranking military, quizzes us on our application form. So much for no one reading it. Then he stamps it. Stamps the entry form. Stamps the passport. Puts a big sticker on the application. Puts a bigger sticker in the passport. Signs it. Stamps it with a different stamp. Stamps the entry form again, and then the application one more time with yet a new stamp, just for good luck.

He then informs me I need photocopies of my passport photo and new Bolivian sticker. I shudder. The visa had drained the last of my cash, God knows how much they'll loot me for to make a photocopy.

Across the street. 1.5 Bolivianos, approximately 20 cents. Ok then.

Now we walk to the new bus. Mototaxis (motorized rickshaws, if you recall) offer to drive us the immense distance, for a fee. I walk the immense distance in 2 minutes. Our new bus is a bit smaller, a bit tighter, with most of the luggage tied on top. As our bus full of tourists prepares to leave, a local woman arrives with her luggage. 5 full heavy bags of grain, hoisted up slowly and laboriously to crush our bags.

After waiting what seemed like an eternity for her to load her wares, we're finally ready to leave the border zone. The bus begins to peel out... and stops. We're stuck in some traffic jam. We back up, twist a bit, and try again. No luck. The driver tries a new tactic, pulling into the mud, making the bus dangerously teeter on edge. Still stuck. Between the fat woman and her fat grain, and the subsequent gridlock, we sit on our already-numb asses for an extra half an hour.

Finally, finally, we start moving. Slowly at first, but then staying slow. The afternoon is quickly wearing away, helped along by the change in time zone. Road construction - and destruction - also lends its weight. A whole squadron of flies had joined our bus while waiting to escape the filthy border, and they showed no signs of leaving their new tenement. In fact, more flies join every time we have to stop our bus, file off, line up, let the military look at our passports, and let us back on the bus again, for no apparent reason than to show off their shiny new guns. The bulky woman with the bulky bags bribes her way through.

It's dark when we arrive in La Paz, the day squandered. A trip that was supposed to take 5 hours took nearly 11. No mudslide required. On the upside, no criminals or con-men. Except the ones in government uniform.