Entering Bolivia

On the 5th of July, with 24 days remaining on our Peruvian visa, we drove the remaining 20 minutes to the Bolivian border. It had been a push to see everything we wanted to and get here with time still remaining to re-enter but we had made it. Ruby had been an absolute trooper. Now all we had to do was get into Bolivia and we could slow down. 

The Bolivian border at Copacabana is a pretty small affair and we’d heard that they didn’t care about pets. One less thing to worry about. The main concern here was actually fuel. In Peru, when you need petrol, you simply go to the petrol station. However, Bolivia is different. The Bolivian government subsidises around 60% of the price of fuel for its citizens, meaning that here, fuel is only around 43p per litre. However, as a foreigner you are supposed to pay the full amount, around £1.10 a litre. Many petrol stations have cameras to monitor who fuel is sold to and require your ID number to buy fuel. Some have the capability of charging the pump price to ‘international rate’ while others do not. This means things are not as straightforward as just turning up and buying fuel. With this in mind, we went and filled the tank and both jerry cans before we arrived at the border. This meant we would have a good amount of time before we needed to deal with finding fuel.

Now ready, we pulled up and began the process. Firstly, on the Peruvian side it was a simple matter to get our passports stamped. Then we waited a short time for someone from the aduana office to come and sign out the vehicle. He saw our jerry can on the roof and warned us that we wouldn’t be permitted to enter Bolivia with it full. He advised us to put it in the fuel tank, however that was already full too. With the Peruvian formalities complete, we drove into the no man’s land of street vendors between the two countries immigration offices. We stopped here and took our fuel cans off the roof and hid them in the van inside the cat litter tray, before continuing on. 

We quickly got stamped into Bolivia and then I went to deal with the vehicle documents while Lee went to change our remaining soles to bolivianos. The lady here was pretty thorough. She came out to the check the VIN number as normal, then wanted to find the engine number. This has only happened once before in Panama, and we used the same tactic and played dumb. The engine number on our document is the one of the original VW engine and therefore has never been correct, even if we hadn’t changed it twice already. After a few minutes poking around in our filthy engine bay, they soon gave up on that venture and just ticked it off anyway. 

Now she came to poke her head inside. Then, she turned to me and said she could smell fuel, did we have any fuel containers? I was about to make an excuse about how the fuel tank smells when it’s full, when she cut herself off mid-sentence with a delighted little squeal. She had noticed Lexi curled up on the seat. All thoughts of fuel forgotten, the next five minutes we talked about cats, the perfect distraction. 

Back at the office, the paperwork was soon complete and we had the all clear to drive off. The only thing would need to do now was buy insurance. There is no office here at this border and it is also not required for the first 30 days in the country, so we had plenty of time to get it sorted. We drove in a short way to the town of Copacobana for some supplies. It’s a tiny little town which doesn’t really have a proper supermarket and so we got a few drinks and other small bits and bobs to last a couple of days before driving out to a nearby spot on the shore of Lake Titicaca again. We drove down a questionable dirt road and arrived at ‘the beach’. Here was where some locals came to fish with lots of small boats and little jetties lining the shore. We asked the only two people there if we could stay and they pointed to an area by some picnic tables, saying it was no problem.

It had been a remarkably easy day, and now we were here we had a full two and a half months to enjoy Bolivia. To start with, we needed to do some research on where to go. No one ever really talks about this country. They have the famous salts flats of Uyuni and there is also a very popular drive down the Laguna Route in the south, but aside from that we knew nothing about the place and judging from what we had heard, or rather the lack of it we didn’t think there was an awful lot to do here. Boy, were we wrong. 

As the sun dipped behind the trees, the chill of the night air came and we headed inside to put the heating on and cook dinner. A knock on the door a little later, turned out to be the only person who permanently lived here. He asked that we pay 10bs for ‘road maintenance’ and said we were welcome to stay as long as we liked. A friendly chap, we chatted a little and it turns out that he has 8 dogs. The cats were not going to be impressed and neither were we when the sleepy dogs that had been lying around all afternoon started barking and chasing each other up and down the beach for several hours. Fortunately, by the time we wanted to go to sleep they appeared to have worn themselves out and we enjoy a quiet night by the lake.

With the luxury of time, we felt no need to rush off the next day. We made use of being very close to the lake to do our laundry and also bought some fresh trout off a returning fisherman. We got all the tools we owned out of the van to make a video and then later that night, we left the fish and made ourselves a make do oven to cook a pizza.

The cats too enjoyed exploring, with Lexi managing to lose her collar twice in the same day. When the dogs went on their nighttime rampage again, this time the cats were nowhere to be seen. We spent some time finding them both in the freezing cold, unsure if they had been scared off into the forest. Aimee didn’t have a collar now and after a little while of climbing up the steep dirt bank behind us, we found Lexi, blissfully unaware of the stress she was causing us, chasing a leaf. Despite the fact that the dogs hadn’t been chasing them, something seemed to have got them excited and they barked throughout the night, sitting right next to the van which was particularly unpleasant. 

Even after a horrible night's sleep, the fish still needed filleting and Lee set about sharpening the knives and dealing with that. Between the undeserving dogs and an enthusiastic kitten, all the skin, guts and unappealing bits of fish were quickly disposed off, leaving us with some nice fillets. We debated whether to leave. We didn’t fancy another night of dogs barking, but we had something special planned in Copacabana which meant that we needed to wash the car. We decided to risk it, spending the rest of the daylight washing Ruby in readiness for tomorrow. 

Perhaps it was the large amount of scraps we’d fed them, but that night we once again had peace and quiet. I was glad not to be hunting Lexi again, it was pretty cold here with patches of ice on the beach that never thawed. Not only that, but now she had completely lost her collar and no amount of us wandering around the beach trying to find it with my phone helped. The air tags had not been a success and we decided that we must invest in a better solution, soon. As much as it was irritating to drive off and leave it behind, we didn’t have much choice and so we set off back to the town. 

We arrived outside the church, located on the main plaza. Already, there was a substantial line of cars waiting and we pulled up at the front of the second line to join them. This was the place you went to get your car blessed by the local priest, a popular activity. We thought that Ruby was definitely in need of all the help she could get and if that didn’t work, possibly an exorcist instead. Once we had joined the line, a local woman came to sell us decorations. Before you get your car blessed you decorate it with all sorts of flowers and ornaments as well as chucking a load of different alcohol on it. If you go all in, it costs about £20 but maybe in the future it’ll save us £20 in breakdowns. We told the lady to go ahead and let her get on with her decorating. Soon Ruby was covered in garlands, banners and a tasteful hat. Bottles of booze were placed at the ready, in front while we awaited the priest. 

Soon, he appeared with a big plastic bucket full of holy water and a stick with which to splash it on the car. He asked us where we were from, and wished us luck on our journey, before walking anti-clockwise around Ruby, blessing her. Now that she was officially annointed, it was our turn. First we set off with the ‘champagne’. You’re supposed to shake up the bottle and spray it all over the car, like they do when they celebrate F1… I always thought this looked quite easy but maybe after spending most of my life being trained to silently open and pour champagne it wasn’t meant to be. I shook the bottle, poured some on myself, most of it on the floor and a dribble on the van. Lee was doing much better and also walked around her in an anti-clockwise direction (this is apparently very important) covering our nice clean van in sticky apple juice. Our decorating lady stood at the front holding other things for us to throw on Ruby. Tiny bottles of wine as well as flowers petals and rice to stick to it all. All around us the locals also went for it. We squeezed around each others cars, drinks flying and flowers everywhere. It was great fun!

Now with still the afternoon left, we took our sticky rice covered van parked up in a side street by the market. We planned to drive out to another more remote spot on the lake and so first we went to stock up on groceries. Returning with a huge bag of veg for less than a tenner, we were all set to go. It was a couple of hours to drive and we couldn’t help but appreciate the gorgeous views. We drove along the shore of the lake in the bright afternoon sunshine and everywhere we looked a white snow covered peak rose in the distance. 

After just over an hour, we ran out of road. To continue on, you have to take a ferry. These are large wooden barges taking around two cars. Before long, we were loaded up and making our way across to the other side. It being the main road to the capital, it was a pretty smooth operation but I'm glad we had attempted it on a dry day as both the entry and exit were steep mud banks and on the other side, we had to reverse out. No problem in the dry, but I imagine the rainy season would be another story. Now we had crossed, it was a short drive around to another beautiful beach just on the outskirts of the town of Cocotoni. We heard that again there was a 10bs fee to stop, but I was more than happy to pay a pound the fantastic views we had. Despite the fact it was the weekend too, it was practically empty, my idea of paradise.