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Published: December 6th 2012
Day 2 Summary: Nightmare and regal bananas!
Distance travelled 300Km
Max speed: 111Mph (we found the car’s got a max speed limiter)
We had a good night’s sleep in the little town of Tupiza after a nice Pizza in an Italian restaurant for the tourists. As I was waking up I was dreaming that the government was firing missiles at us! Well when I actually woke up I realised that there were the sounds of Petardos (very loud firecrackers, hence the missiles), which is the signature tune of blockaders all over Bolivia. The local taxi drivers were blockading the road into and out of Tupiza over some dispute over the state of the road. So with a schedule that involved 700Km stretching ahead of us, we couldn’t move. But as usual with the blockades in Bolivia, come lunch time the blockaders were moving off. Anticipating this we were packed up and ready to go, helped out by a very merry drunk man who came over to give Ben a big hug.
Tulia’s a lovely place. Small town feel (Nailsea?) and the start of the tourist trail for those visiting from Argentina wishing to go on to the
Salt Flats. It's surrounded by some fairly big hills and itself is about 9500ft up. There’s a big river running around the edge of it and so was easy for the blockaders to stop traffic into and out of.
We were all in good spirits as we set off. It was my turn to drive having only completed 1 hour of my 2 hour stint last night. The roads to our next stop were really good. Smooth, empty and gradually climbing up to Villazon (11500ft), the border with Argentina. As we arrived I said that I always dreaded dealing with the officials at these places. Andrea said she’d take care of the Bolivian side so got in the queue with all the others wanting to cross over. I parked the car and took the car documents to the Argentinian customs. After a few blank faces that a foreigner wanted to take a Bolivian registered car into Argentina I sat down with an official who knew what to do. He opened the papers and said “ok, you’re going to need a copy of this document”, which is about par for those situations. “Hold on”, he said, “you’ve not got permission
from the Argentinian Consulate in Cochabamba. You can’t go into Argentina without that”. That was about 1:30pm and the start of a very difficult rest of the day.
They told me there was an Argentinian Consulate back in Villazon who might be able to do something. With Andrea still in the passport queue and Joe, Ben and Nady sitting in the car on the “International bridge” I slowly walked back where we’ve come from into the cold, grey and windy town of Villazon, looking for the Argentinian Consulate. Why are border towns all over the world like that?
Reina (which means queen in Spanish) Sotillo is the rather eccentric well dressed, middle aged Argentinian Consulate for the Bolivian department of Potosi. She was keen to practise her (rather rusty) English but after some phone calls to her counterpart in Cochabamba and the customs officials was sorry to say that she couldn’t help. She only has jurisdiction in the department of Potosi, not in Cochabamba. Because the contract for the Xterra had been written in Cochabamba she couldn’t authorise transfer into Argentina. The queen was keen to hear of our work with training young lads and said one of
A Cup of Tea
Hope as Dr Fernandez helps us out...a cup of tea in the doorway of his officethe border officials might be sympathetic to what we do. She called him and wrote me a note, saying he was waiting to see me.
Well, he wasn’t able to help. He seemed nice enough but was doing his job. He sent me over the bridge to Argentina to see his boss. So another long walk into Argentina so see Dr Soto, but no, without consulate approval we weren’t getting the car across the bridge.
Kindly, queen Sotillo had given me her phone number, so now getting desperate I called her again. “Yes, it’s a problem. Last week the same happened with an important family from Bolivia. They had to park up their car and go on the bus. I’m sorry but without a document issued in Potosi I can’t sign the permission for you. Maybe you’ll find a lawyer here who can help you”. Well that was about as low a moment as I’ve had in a long time. All our plans for a long trip through South America in the new car we’d bought for such a trip, are falling apart around us.
The children were starting to moan about not going back
to Cochabamba and “where is the God who’s supposed to be with us?”. I thought, that’s interesting and said to Andrea “I’m not going to defend God to them, he can do that himself!”.
This was about 4pm and we were all hungry. We started to drive around but all the chicken places were closed and there appeared to be nowhere to eat. So now we’re cold, tired, disappointed, hungry and finding it hard to think clearly with the altitude. Out of my list of possible worst case scenarios, we’re only missing wet.
There were lots of tiny lawyer’s offices around. I said to the family that I was going to have one last try and see if any of the lawyers would be able to help. Andrea said she’d find something to eat. Soon she came back with some bananas, bread and dry chocolate cake. The banana was all I needed to fuel my lawyer mission.
The first lawyer looked blank and said I needed a notary. The first notary said she couldn’t do anything without the signature of the original owner of the car and he was in Sucre, a day’s drive away.
Dr
Fernandez was a big man with dark skin. His dusty office, just alongside the main plaza smelled of strong cigarettes. He and his secretary sat behind very old computers, used solely for writing contracts. It was a cold dingy office with plastic sofas. He had the look about him that he was good as finding solutions to legal problems.
He thumbed through the papers, peering closely over the top of his thick glasses. He looked up. “Ok, this is what we’re going to do”. At last a glimmer of light peeking round a slight bend in the tunnel. “I can’t change the ownership document as you’re suggesting, but there’s a clause in your contract that allows you to substitute someone in your place. Are you with a friend?” So Dr Fernandez gets to work tapping away, writing a new contract, making Andrea the new owner of a 2008 Nissan Xterra.
It’s amazing how a cup of tea seems important at such times. The gas burner came out and we boiled the kettle in the doorway of Dr Fernandez’s office. As the 5 of us shared a cup of tea
I reflected on how the simple act of
boiling a kettle over a real flame helps to regain focus in a very confusing day. At last some hope.
Queen Sotillo agreed to wait at her office to sign the necessary papers. She loved meeting the children and dispatched her staff to attend to the family and invited me into her office. She pointed out (in her rapidly improving English) that the officials weren’t going to have seen this situation before, whilst very deliberately signing and stamping the document, effectively pulling rank on the customs officials waiting on the bridge. I in return was going to pray to God for her long overdue promotion to Argentinian Ambassador in the UK.
She asked me to wait a moment and came back with 5 bananas and wanted to meet the family. The boys, stifling their mirth, lined up with me, Nady and Andrea, alongside Reina, bananas in hand for a photo taken by one of her minions. One of them slipped me a grin, that yes, she was always like this.
Some more phone calls, and the customs officials were ready to receive us. As we approached the International Bridge in the dark I was really hoping that
the shift would have changed so that I wouldn’t have to be presenting the new papers to the same people. Good a new face. He ushers us into an office with…oh no, the same man who had had flatly refused to let us across.
As the car is now Andrea’s we both sat in the office whilst they went through the documents with the finest tooth comb you’ve ever seen. Several long phone calls and puzzled looks. “Can Reina authorise this?” we heard whispered. Gradually after an hour or so, there’s the realisation that they’re indeed going to have to let us in to Argentina. The official man warms up considerably and he comes over to chat with the children, who have been listening to Lady
Gaga, Fat Boy Slim, even deciding that Down Under, Men at Work is going to be the tune of the holiday, once we’re across. We need to take care of the wild donkeys wandering on to the road.
Finally at 8:30pm without passports even being checked we’re on our way into the dark high mountains of Argentina, Andrea driving her new car. We say a quick prayer for Reina.
The roads here are great. Smooth, fast and straight. 80-90mph is easy. We’ve been warned that there are lots of police checks on the way, all looking for stolen cars having come across the border from Bolivia. None of them give us any hassle as we present our new papers.
After her 2 hour stint Andrea pulls over in the total darkness. We all jump out for a wee and look at the stars and nearly jump out of our skin as a donkey starts screaming at us, its eyes glowing from the bushes.
At about 12:30am we pull into the Northern Argentinian town of Jujui. When everyone wakes up they’re all hungry, but Nady wants to carry on sleeping. We find a diner pulsating with young people at 1:30am. That’s how they do it here. Andrea stays in the car with Nady, both wiped out now. Me and the boys order beef and a chicken for Andrea. The restaurant staff are friendly and as buzzing as the music and lights in the place.
I suggest my plan to the boys: we put the tent up on the grass across from the diner, put the luggage in the front seat and fold the rear seats down. The restaurant staff think it sounds like a plan “you’ve got to live”. So we finish up and Joe and Ben are remarkably proficient at getting a tent up at 2:30am in Suburbia. Nady, Joe and Andrea are in the car, me and Ben in the tent. I’m asleep in minutes. We’re camping on Jujui high street.
Gray
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Julie Oates
non-member comment
Angelic miracles
Wow - what a story! Reminds me of our nightmare coming over to you that Christmas. Amazing how all hope can be lost, until some angelic person cares enough to rise to the challenge of sorting out the problem. I always wanted to contact the person who helped us that time, but I couldn't find him - like he had vanished back to heaven!