All the way south

BOLIVIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I looked forward to going to Bolivia my entire trip.  It is the country that I had the most curiosity about.  The more I read, the more I wanted to know Bolivia, first hand.  It is also the country that was only second to Colombia that people from back home said I should skip.  Maybe I was just lucky, but I had _NO_ problems in Bolivia.  Like Colombia, the only trouble I had was leaving.

Bolivia started out with a bang.  It did not disappoint.  The border between Puno, Peru and Bolivia was INSANE.  People EVERYWHERE dragging things across the border.

I’m pretty happy to be here as the photo shows!

Theo’s happy too.  According to his original research, Bolivia was also a no-go country.  I think I can speak for him too in that he really enjoyed Bolivia.

The annoyance that I have with Bolivia is the visa fee for United States passport holders: $135.  That’s right, one hundred thirty-five dollars.  OUCH.  I spent more entering the country than I did the first week staying there.

It was kinda funny.  The first thing you do is check-in with the police.  There we were talking about the fee for entering the country and the police man generously offered to let me in for only US$10.  He was of course joking (I think) as he didn’t have access to the visa stamps.  We were joking the whole time.  How could I not?  He looked like a 60 year old version of the evil terminator from T2 complete with the mirrored oversized sunglasses covering most of his face, mustache, and rigid posture.

There is also when I starting having my first problem with my bike:  The starter switch wouldn’t work.  I’d press the button and nothing would happen.  Switch off the bike with the key, check that gearbox is in neutral, hold the clutch, switch the bike on again… and still nothing.  Eeep.

Fortunately there were about 370 people standing around at the border who were willing to help clear a path and bump start me.

After leaving the border area we started looking for gas.  Another problem with Bolivia that I read about was gas.  While I had no problems with the fuel, every and I mean EVERY single person I asked had no idea about the octane.  Hell, I even know the word for octane in spanish.   Another interesting thing is that there are military at every gas station keeping track of how much gas you buy and tracking your license plate.  Strange.  I don’t know much information about that.. if someone else does, please comment.

La Paz from the toll-booth.  Notice the Evo Morales grafiti.

I found it interesting that people had signs not accecpting US dollars.  I really expected an anti-american sentiment, but I never encountered it.

This is a shoe shine kid.  They’re all over the place and all wear a baseball cap with a ski mask covering their face.  My understanding is that it is a looked down upon if you are shining shoes so you hide your face from your friends.  It is also incredibly creepy and I didn’t want a shine from any of them.

La Paz was one of the few large cities that felt different than your typical metropolitan.  There is a huge and obvious indigineous presence there.  I had an American Day and went to Burger King for lunch and it was full of couples where the woman was wearing a long skirt and a bowler hat.

The one thing I did in La Paz was ride the old Yungas aka “DEATH ROAD” of Bolivia on a mountian bike.  While I met a very cool american moto traveler who was working there, the Death Road was nothing special.  It’d be much more interesting if I hadn’t been riding death roads all over central and south america for the last 6 months.  I have a CD of pictures and movies that I need to go through.  Other than the cool kiwis that I met on the bus, there is very little worth mentioning about the trip.