Journey of Bolivia: The difficulty getting in and out

As part of our planned journey would be continuing on to Bolivia after Peru. Bolivia was the only country in South America that we were traveling to that required a Visa, and Bolivia only required a Visa for American citizens. I thought I was being proactive by researching and pulling together the requirements prior to leaving on our trip. As we had 4 days in Lima one morning we cabbed it over to the Bolivian Embassy to deal with the Visa. We arrived to a short line and were feeling lucky. However, the lady came out gave us a piece of paper with instructions in Spanish and asked an American girl who spoke Spanish to explain to us the process.

I started talking ad asking the American girl questions which of course she did not know and handed her my completed application and support. She got called into the office and went in bringing my paperwork with her. Jon and I sat there not knowing what to do. About 5 minutes later a man that worked at the Embassy came out and gave us back the papers and gave us instructions in Spanish. The only thing I got was that we needed to fill out the paperwork on-line and print it, the blank one I printed and filled out was not acceptable. What I could not understand was did we need to come back, could we get it at the border? If I could fill out on-line where was I supposed to print the document? I ended up in a heated discussion with the gentleman using the very limited Spanish I knew. We ended up leaving feeling frustrated and confused.

Over the next week I somehow managed to find the on-line application and proceeded to fill them out. Before the last step where you have to upload tons of support such as passport, picture, itinerary, hotel reservation, proof of financial means, etc. there was an option to print. Since I really did not understand the guy I printed to pdf sent to my e-mail and went off to find a place to print the documents. Of course the first place the printed broke after I had printed mine so we had to go and search for another place to go print Jon’s.

Once we arrived in Puno we took all of our documents including the printed forms and headed to the Bolivian consulate. The address we had was old so when we arrived it was a different business there. Luckily they knew the new address and provided it to us. We cabbed it over to the address provided only to find the person working there was out to lunch. An hour later he returned and I proudly produced the documents which were once again filled out incorrectly. I needed to complete the last step of uploading in order to get a number which would allow him to pull up my application on line. In addition, the fee an astronomical fee of $160 per person needed to be by a wire through a bank and not in US cash which is what we had thought.

I stared at the man frustrated with tears welling up and Jon shook his head that this process was so difficult. We both had the same thought though f*** Bolivia, lets skip it. The guy, a saint, sensing our frustration actually took an hour and a half and sat with us helping us to complete the applications!

With our Visa’s in hand and a few extra days to spare due to the earthquake in Colca Canyon we decided to jump on a bus the next day for the 3-hour ride to Copacabana which is the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. We presented our tickets and passports to board the bus. The man saw our American passports and immediately had a look of dismay and actually said, “Oh no American”. We proudly showed him our Bolivian Visa’s and he was instantly relived. There were stories of Americans being left on the border due to not having the correct paperwork and the difficulty of obtaining a Visa.

We spend a lovely few days on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and when it came time to board our bus back to Cusco, Peru we were informed that there was a strike going on and the Bolivian people put rocks and trees in the road not allowing vehicles to pass. The bus company said if they tried to move the rocks the people would throw rocks at the bus. We were told that we would have to walk about an hour, with all of our belongings to the boarder. The bus drove the 10 minutes to the first road block where all of the passengers unloaded, grabbed their stuff and immediately headed out for the walk. Of course Jon was not ready, had to fix his bags, drink water, etc. so we were the last of the pack.

As we walked along, dusk turned to pitch black evening and we encountered several road blocks being monitored by the locals. It is not easy walking with a 30-pound backpack in the dark trying to avoid rocks scattered throughout the road. In addition, poor Jon had an extra bag because we thought it would be a good idea to buy 3 bottles of wine at our wine tasting in Ica. I passed the time getting to know a French girl who had been traveling for 5 years, getting jobs as she needed to in order to continue traveling. We were entertained by an English girl dragging a huge suitcase who was extremely frustrated at the process loudly complaining and swearing to anyone who would listen. Ironically she stopped to try and pet every animal she encountered along the way.

An hour later we reached the boarded just in time as the Peru side was about to close. Happily, we climbed into the bus exhausted and ready to pass out for our overnight bus ride to Cusco. Hopefully our next stop in Bolivia will not be as exciting.