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Ok folks, let’s start by saying that even when it seems boring, it never is. Even when we’re playing the regular tourist, there is always something going on (or should I say wrong?).
First bit of advice: DO NOT climb all the way up from sea level up to 4600m in half a day.
Why? Just don’t.
Photo by Adele Thomas
We obviously thought we were superman and wonder woman and that nothing would effect us. Wrong. Except for the fantastic scenery, we had one of the worst nights of our life. Altitude dizziness (“soroche”) it’s not a joke, and you’ll find yourself not breathing properly and waking up in the middle of your best 5 minutes deep sleep with an awful suffocating sense.
We then eventually left Chile, not without “oiling” some Bolivian police officer at customs (we do love corrupted police, don’t we?) and we arrived in La Paz. A shower and the first hostel in months cheered us up and we enjoyed a bit of this crazy and inexpensive city. The city itself is beautiful, if it wasn’t for a million white mini buses carrying up to 17 people, which absolutely don’t respect any traffic rule and make our moving around with Betsy improbable. Or wait, maybe that was fun, and maybe they do contribute to characterise the experience?
After dealing with two more mechanics (yep that’s right, 18 and counting..) we eventually left La Paz and went for some bigtimebackpackertourist “adventure”: Lake Titicaca on the Peruvian boarder was actually a lot of fun. And even if our poor legs, which usually stay comfy on the van, had to walk a good 35kms in two days, the breath taking landscape and a very nice canadian couple who we shared the path with, paid the effort back.
Second bit of advice: DO NOT leave any paper work/document with a police officer, even if they ask for it. Why? Because these fu***rs have a very well organised scam that even the most aware traveller could fall for. If you’re backpacking by bus no worries, but if you have a vehicle, here’s the system: a cop at a police check just before the boarder asks you for your documents, including all the ones released at your entrance in the country. Then they keep one of them stamping you the other one in your possession (and you even pay for this to happen). When then you eventually try to cross the boarder, a custom officer asks for that paper that you don’t have anymore… “That’s a problem…, what can we do…, you’ll have to drive back 500kms to get another one… but hey, I’ll make an exception for you: you just pay me 200, and you can pass…”.
After realising that was a full time scam, we eventually argued for a good hour, and come down to pay something like 10 dollars. It still hurts.
Any good news then? We’re now heading to Cusco where we finally start to work for the first organisation. We’re very excited and as good workaholics we’ve got itchy hands to actually start.
Stay tuned.