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Published: August 6th 2007
The Border
The Rio Bermejo forms the border between Argentina and Bolivia. Here's a stream of people leaving Argentina and heading towards the flotilla of boats to take them across.I can't believe we've been back in Argentina for three whole months. That means it's "visa run" time again. When we were in Buenos Aires this always meant a weekend in Uruguay. From here in Salta it's time to go to Bolivia. We have three options easily available to us so we decided to go somewhere completely new to us.
We took a 5 hour bus journey from Salta to Aguas Blancas. We were delayed for about 40 minutes halfway there by a bloqueo when one community blocked the road in protest against something. We didn't find out what their gripe was as once the road was opened the bus sped past them so quickly we couldn't read their banners!
So we finally got to Aguas Blancas which consists of a couple of dusty streets alongside the river and the Argentine border post. Getting to Bolivia was easy as we simply got off the bus and walked 2 minutes to get our passports stamped. Then we went through the one-way customs check which only existed for people coming into Argentina. The queue was massive and looked like it would take 4 or 5 hours! We were thankful to be
Tiny Boats
Thankfully it was a short journey. We could see the water under the planks so how they stay afloat, God only knows! going the other way, but equally concerned about our return journey!!
We walked past this enormous queue which brought us to the banks of the River Bermejo. Then we got onto a tiny boat which took us across to the other side. I got told off by a soldier for taking a photo (whoops!) so I quickly put the camera back in my pocket. On the other side there was no border post or customs. Very strange! We took a taxi to the centre and checked into a hotel. A word of advice, don't use the hotels in the centre if you don't want to hear the discotheque blaring away until 5am! There are a couple of more expensive looking hotels a couple of streets away from the centre and they can't cost much more than the US$8 we paid for a double room! After finding a room, we walked out to the bus station where there is a "migracion" office. The official in there was concerned that I had a brand new passportand wanted to stamp my cancelled old one! There were also issues about the "anulado" stamp on an old Bolivian stamp. We had 30 day visas
The Ship's Dog
Or was he the navigator? annulled in favour of 90 day ones and I have to explain this every time we go near a Bolivian immigration official. Still, we got it all sorted out and we were legally in Bolivia at last.
To be brutally honest there isn't a great deal to do in Bermejo. You can't even walk alongside the river which is a shame as the valley is beautiful. We did find the "Botanical Garden" but it isn't really what it claims to be and, in fact, was being prepared to host a motocross event on Sunday. We caught the end of what we thought was going to be a festival, but it was an "Investment Festival" and therefore not full of music and dance. We did get a free avocado and a few oranges though!!
So the highlight really had to be the eating and drinking eh! There were no real restaurants around so on Friday Russ celebrated his birthday with some barbecued beef and a bottle of beer. Then we found the only "bar" around where we sat and chatted with Hector, a local Maths teacher who has been learning English for 8 months and wanted to practice. He's
The Border
As seen from Bolivia! never met anyone from England before!! He was really sweet though, and a little tipsy, so we sat and chatted (mostly in Spanish) for a while.
Breakfast was hard to come by. We found a great Salteñaria which basically serves nothing but Salteñas. These are tasty empanada-type things but in a sweetish pastry. Russ had got quite used to these when he lived in Santa Cruz, and was very pleased to have them back on the menu!
On Saturday night we found a lovely little place where we had some Bolivian wine (really not a patch on teh Argentine stuff) and some pique a lo macho which is basically a beef stir fry with frankfurter sausages in a rich gravy, served on a mountain of chips (that's French Fries to our American friends!). Again this was a favourite in Santa Cruz!
So Sunday morning came around (after we had listened to the disco until 5am) and we decided to head back to Argentina as soon as we could in the hope of beating those border queues. We took a taxi out to the International Bridge where, to our astonishment, we walked straight through and didn't have to
Picturesque Doorway
Note the chicken running past! wait at all for customs to go through our stuff. So, if you need to cross from Bermejo to Aguas Blancas, it seems the small taxi fare is a worthwhile investment.
The journey back to Salta was uneventful and we got back in time to belatedly celebrate Russ' birthday with a really good bottle of wine. To make it even better, Lily (our boss at St James Institute) sent a birthday cake round!
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