After a wrong turn, we
found what appeared to be a government compound of sorts in the middle of
nowhere. We parked and were greeted by a ranger who led us another 100m down
the road to a GIANT 2 story, screened in porch on both floors, building where
we could stay for free. There were two other people there, a French girl and a
Chilean guy, but other than them we were the only guests.
There was one trail that left from behind the building, so
we checked that out pretty immediately. Based on the signage, alcohol was not
allowed in the compound, but it was our last day (or should have been) in
Paraguay, and we had yet to shotgun a beer there. Accordingly, I packed a
couple beers in my back pockets, and then we went on this mile or two long
trail through dry chaco. It reminded me a bit of Anza Borrego. We stopped by a large cactus and shotgunned
our beers, then continued on. At some point there were a few signs describing
where battles had been fought (who would fight over this land?) between Bolivia
and Paraguay, and a couple names of plants.
Back at the building the Chilean guy and French lady invited us to play some cards and we learned a new Chilean game similar to rummy. We did a bit of planning for our route out of Paraguay, and had a pretty low key night.
The next morning I woke up and tried to make pancakes on the range in the kitchen. It took me a while to figure out that the gas was out, which meant that pancakes were gonna be made on the wood fired stove. They were fantastic, like always.
The couple we were sharing the compound with were also headed to Bolivia, so we gave them a ride the next 300 km to the border. After driving more terrible highway, we arrived at the true political border, where there wasn’t immigration, but there was a customs office for both counties. Odd. We first turned our paperwork into Paraguay, which was a house manned by a couple older men who were pretty good natured. Then we had to walk across the yard to the Paraguayan office. John and the Chilean went while us ladies protected the car from the chickens and dogs roaming the yard. They were gone for A LONG time. At one point the Chilean came back to the car to grab more cash. Apparently we weren’t going to get the car into Bolivia without a $40 USD bribe. Bullshit.
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Not much for scale, but this was the middle of the highway. Pavement to this in 10 meters! |
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Poor Al, but he's toughing it out. It hasn't gotten worse. |
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We were so excited! And then our dreams were crushed. |
Then, we had another
60 km of driving in Bolivia to get to customs office. Once there we had to get
our visas, which we were aware of, so we had our documents in order-passport
photos, US cash, yellow fever vaccination proof, and copies of our passport.
Our friends were welcomed into Bolivia, because they didn’t need visas, while
John and I were denied entrance because the border official had a completely
(and we suspect outdated) different list of requirements for Americans to
obtain visas. He also didn’t like that some of our photocopies had been folded
in half. It was ridiculous.
What came next was more ridiculous. We were literally in the
middle of nowhere. 3 buildings could be seen;
the immigrations office, an adobe house, and a small store front. Since
we weren’t allowed into Bolivia, the immigrations officer sent us to the store
to fill out car up with gas for the 5 hour drive back into Paraguay to the
nearest town with internet and a printer to get out documents. I asked the lady
who was selling us gas out of a plastic jug if she knew of anywhere closer with
internet and a printer, and to my relief, she said her husband had one, and
that he would be at the store in 5 minutes. What!? So this dude shows up and
I’m like “hey, can I use your computer, internet, and printer?”. He was stoked
because he couldn’t figure out how to use a printer and I told him I was a
computer scientist, so win-win situation, right? He plugged in his USB 4G
internet modem into his crappy Lenovo laptop and hooked up the printer all
connected to the generator out back of his store, and I went to work installing
the printer and getting the documents needed for the visa. While this was
happening the immigrations officer must have noticed our car still there and
came over to tell us to drive back to Paraguay. What a dick!
And not just drive back
as a formality. More like drive back right this second, you can’t be here so
you definitely can’t be using this man’s internet. Back we went, pretty furious
(and still without music because there was no radio and the phone with all of
our music was still dead). We turned in our car paperwork to the Bolivian
customs officer, the one we had just bribed, and then when to the Paraguayan
office to get our old paperwork back. The Paraguayan customs officials were
pretty appalled when we told them why we were back. They had a computer and
internet, but no printer, so they couldn’t help us there. Instead, the
Paraguayans went to ask the Bolivians if we could use their printer, but they
refused. We were seriously out of luck. The closest town with internet access
was 4.5 hours away, back along that TERRIBLE road. The Paraguayans gave us
contact information of their friend who worked at immigrations, where we got
our exit stamp 2 days before, and said he would be happy to help us.
Back we went. It got
dark quickly, which made everything worse. We were traveling slower and the car
was taking a beating. There was a storm going on to the north, which at least
provided some lightening to watch, but otherwise morale was pretty low. Hours
later we arrived to this town, and started asking around for our contact, who
had apparently gone home to Filadelphia for the night.
Not really a problem though, because there was no way either
of us was going to drive back to Bolivia that night. So we drove around the
town to realize there was no place to stay, so we slept in the car that night,
which was maybe the worst night of sleep yet. Hot with mosquitoes. At least it
meant we were up early. We found our man who would let us use his computer and
printer, and was super nice. Just let us use his office and everything for like
an hour and a half in the middle of the work day while he occupied himself
outside his office. We drove back to Bolivia, passing all the cop stops and
officials for a 3rd time, having to explain every time why we drove
back and forth and everyone just being in shock about it. At the actual border,
the Paraguayans at the customs office were super friendly and gave us lunch of
rabbit stew and a pile of vegetables for Acacia, and then said that if we
didn’t make it into Bolivia this time they would throw us a party with lots of
beer on the way back. Haha, awesome!
But, for whatever reason, Mr. immigrations officer in
Bolivia was feeling nicer today. We had been careful to keep all our documents
perfectly flat and legible, and when we presented him with all our documents he
couldn’t have cared less. I mean, he wanted 8 documents and he wanted them
crisp. But, “this is your airline reservation, right?”…. “no, that is our
yellow fever vaccination”…. We could have had any 8 pieces of paper and he
would have accepted it. AAAAND! He had been explicit about needing American
Dollars for payment the day before, but didn’t like our dollars because any
slight blemish made the bill unacceptable. So he had us go to the store and change
our dollars into bolivianos and pay in the local currency.
It was all so
frustrating. And to make it worse, as we were finally leaving he asked me if I
was single or married. Seriously?! Even if he hadn’t been such a jerk the day
before, he was 30 years older than me. By the time this was all over it was
just getting dark. We had to immediately stop at a toll booth, paid, and then
as we were pulling out were surrounded by men in military uniforms. They
started opening doors and asking both of us questions at the same time, it was
quite hectic, but other than being intimidating wasn’t really an issue after we
showed them our brand new entrance stamps and let them look for drugs in our
incredibly disorganized car. We kept going and about 10 minutes later we nearly
rear-ended a truck parked in our driving lane without any lights or reflectors
or anything. We slowed as we passed and the guys there asked for some water
because their radiator was broken. We gave them what we had, which in hindsight
wasn’t the smartest, since we were in the middle of nowhere, now without water,
but how could we not, given our previous broken radiator situation.
Another 10 minutes
later and our beautiful highway came to a T, without any signs. First we chose
left, which seemed more traveled. But after 10 minutes of driving a rutted
empty road we began to have doubts. Back to the T and then right. After 20
minutes that seemed even more wrong. So then we went back to the T and waited…
and waited… finally we were able to flag down a car and ask for directions to
Santa Cruz, the big city that we were headed to, eventually. He painted
straight over a 6m high wall of earth. There were tire tracks, but that
obviously seemed like the least correct way, so we hadn’t even considered it. With
no other option we followed him over this wall, and who would have guessed, it
was paved on the other side!? Another kilometer or so later there was another
huge road block with rocks, trees, and dirt blocking the road, but a 2m high
mound that we were able to climb over on the far side. In another kilometer the
same thing, but this time there was a dirt path that led off the road to get
around. We continued like this for 50 km or so, with these road blocks every kilometer
or two.
Nothing Alejandro couldn’t handle, but definitely required
added focus for the driving. Finally we got to a city (something with a V
pretty sure) that was large enough to have some places to stay and places to
get food. It was not a destination by any means, but the city was big enough to
have a gas station, a central market where we picked up a phone charger, and a
hot shower. After spending a night there
we were off towards Santa Cruz.
With
slight issues only ever 100 km or so, where we had to stop and show our
paperwork to the police.
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The best huminta- cornbread with cheese wrapped in a corn husk and cooked over a fire. We bought this from a vendor at a toll booth on the road to Santa Cruz. |