Seattle to Ushuaia

Whoo boy,. I’ve really let this thing build up. Bolivia is behind me now; I have a lot to cover. Let’s start where we left off – resting in Arequipa after a long, difficult ride through the Andes.

I left Arequipa refreshed and with fresh rubber on the bike. Prior to leaving, I asked around and confirmed that the northern route through the National Reserve was paved. Two taxi drivers and the owner of my hotel couldn’t be wrong, could they?

Pictured: one of the nicest parts of this road.

I’m still not sure what happened here – I suspect there was yet another route out of Arequipa, and I (once again) chose incorrectly. In any case, I spent the first 50km of the day on bad dirt roads. It was not quite as bumpy as the previous day’s, but in some places, deep, fine dust completely filled the lane; Satan’s work crew had apparently had a hand in designing this road. In my experience, the ranking for horrible surface conditions goes:

1. Snow/ice
2. Mud
3. Dust/sand

I guess #3 isn’t bad.  it could have been worse! Some careful clutch-work and a bit of muscle got me through the hairy parts, and I eventually found the paved highway. It actually did exist!

Ahh, there's the highway.

The blessed pavement led me over the pass and to Lake Titicaca. The mountain air felt crisp, but the sun kept me warm and happy. This did not last, however. As it’s prone to doing in these parts, the weather turned ugly just as I reached the famous lake. I would have liked to take some photos of the place, but the weather did not agree with this, so I raced to the border through hail and lightning without stopping. I spent the night in a somewhat-dumpy hotel in the border town of Desaguadero.

This was just the first third of the line.

The huge line at the Peruvian Immigration office the next day shocked me. I’d risen at a reasonable 8AM, found some breakfast, then meandered over to the border, where I found over 200 people waiting in a line that snaked out of the Immigration office, down the street, and into the city center. I got in line and asked the man in front of me how long it would take. “Two, three hours”, he replied. A light mist was falling, so I fetched my rain shell from the hotel room, then dug in for the duration.

I snapped a few photos while waiting in line. This little boy noticed me just as I took his photo.

These three-wheeled bicycle taxis were everywhere. Judging by the number of collisions I saw, some of them must have had no brakes!

This bike would be perfect at Burning Man.

I reached the end of the line at 1 PM. The immigration officer stamped and scrawled something illegible in my passport, then motioned me to the door. “Next!” Total time spent in line: over three hours. Total time spent processing my visa: twenty seconds. I guess that after that wait, I expected something more.

Bolivian immigration was eventful as well. I’d learned the previous evening that a Bolivian visa costs $135 USD for American citizens in some kind of reciprocity setup (apparently US visas for Bolivian citizens cost quite a bit), so I was ready for that part. What I wasn’t ready for was the forty-strong Peruvian high school soccer team that also wanted to enter Bolivia. The madhouse immigration office took almost two hours to get through. Find a form, fill it out, make a photocopy, go into the back room, get a sticker, get another photocopy, pay $135, have the man refuse to take my $20 bill because it had a tiny tear on one side, politely tell the same man to blow himself, finally get my stamp and flee the premises before somebody decides to rip it off my passport. Whew!

After processing through the Peruvian and Bolivian customs (which were thankfully pretty easy) I rode the last ~100km to the capital city of La Paz. Thanks to the border craziness, I only arrived an hour before nightfall, and all the hostals I’d marked on my GPS were full up, so I took a room at the first hotel with a garage I found. They wanted $50 per night, but I bargained them down to $29 – still pricey, but at some point you just don’t care anymore; a hot shower and a warm bed are all you can think about.

La Paz is another huge city, but it has a certain character to it. One taxi driver explained it to me. “I’ve lived here for twenty years, and La Paz is the dirtiest, most corrupt city in Bolivia.” Not everyone I talked to had the same opinion, but they all agreed that the police were so corrupt as to be nearly useless.

In any case, I enjoyed my time in La Paz. The high altitude (most of the city sits at 12,000 feet) made it hard to explore by foot, so I took a taxi to one of the higher parts of the city and walked back down to my hotel.  During my walk I heard strange shouts – “Mil dollares, por un peso!” (A thousands dollars for one peso!)  This apparently absurd exchange rate sparked my interest, and I went to see what all the commotion was about.

It turns out that Bolivia (and possibly other countries, but I wasn’t able to verify this) has a unique celebration during the month of January.  Bolivians will buy miniature models of things they want in their life – love, money, cars, houses, etc – and takes these items to some kind of priest/priestess who blesses them in a fragrant, smokey ritual.  The blessed items are said to then appear in one’s life within the next 3 years.

A woman blesses a bag miniature models for a hopeful couple.

During my wanderings I also managed to find a brake shop that could repair my rear brake pads.  If you recall, I realized back in Peru that my rear pads were completely shot, and as I’d neglected to carry replacements, I had few options.  The brake shop did a great job of sanding off the remaining friction material and adhering new material to the brake pads.  I had to sand off a bit from each pad before they would fit into the caliper, but the end result was a fully-functional rear brake.  Always a good thing!

I'm not exactly sure what they did to make the friction material adhere to the pads so well. It almost looks like they welded it!

I’m going to sign off with one last picture.  I saw these bikes all over La Paz, and once I saw two policemen riding one I realized why.

The standard police bike in La Paz: a red KLR650 (the fastest color)

This entry was posted on January 29, 2010 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Motorcycle Ride.

Tags: bolivia, border crossing, peru, pictures