La Frontera

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I should not have worn a head scarf that day. Made me look like a dirty hippie. I should also not have declared my coca lollies as food (and wasn´t going to but was sucking on one at the time so I owned up). I didn´t realise that coca lollies are regarded by Chilean officials as an indication of drug traffickers. I was the only person on a busload of about 20 people to get a full scale drug search crossing from Bolivia into Chile.

For those who don´t know, coca leaves are used everywhere in Bolivia and Peru (and have been for thousands of years) for the altitude and other ailments. They are somewhat controversial because they are the leaves of the same plant that is used to make cocaine, but you need ridiculous amounts of the leaves to make the smallest bit of cocaine. Bolivia is known as being a big cocaine producer but ít´s actually the States which does the producing from the raw form, and makes most of the profit too. Trade in coca LEAVES in prohibited under international law, which has prompted Bolivia to launch a campaign with the slogan 'oja de coca no es droga' (leaves of coca are not a drug). you can buy t-shirts in la paz that say that.

Anyway, i learnt all this at the Coca Museum in La Paz, where i also bought the lollies that I tried to carry across the border that day. The lollies tht you buy in the museum are the real thing. They´re not like the fake, transparent, sugary, packaged ones you can get just about anywhere (check your supermarket shelves today). The ones from the museum come in a little hemp bag and after a few minutes of sucking they make your mouth numb (cocaine is an anaesthetic and coca leaves have the same effect). They look like little black blocks of hashish, I imagine.

When my inspector asked if I had any food I pulled them out and showed them to him, He asked me what they were for. 'For the altitude' (dúh!!! maybe Chile is more arrogantly ignorant of it´s neighbours than America is of Canada-coca leaves are the national coffee/ceremonial/EVERYTHING in Peru and Bolivia for chrissakes...).

His asked if I smoked. No. Then why did i need them? Ahhhh, again, for the altitude- I had been trekking (you don´t need to be a smoker to get altitude sick in La Paz, let alone at 5800m!). Apparently this information was new to him, so he asked again If I smoked. no. Marijuana? Cocaine?

Momentarily startled by his extraodinary leap in logic from coca lollie sucker to cocaine addict, I couldn´t help but laugh, and then answered very quickly 'no'.

Next question was ´what country are you from?´. I said AUstraila, which he heard as Austria and I corrected. Perhaps if we´d left it at Austria it might´ve ended there (Thanks a lot schapelle). Instead he said 'pasaporte por favor', called out to someone else and motioned me into the little interrogation room. I was getting a bit nervous at this stage because of how intimidating he was being.

HE rambled on at me in very fast spanish and completely lost me so I had to say 'no entiendo' and my Canadian friend was allowed to come and translate. After listening to the inspector Mike laughed and said in Spanish 'she doesn´t have drugs', but the guy got angry and said 'JUST TRANSLATE' (I could understand that). Mike turned to me and said 'they want to search you for drugs'. I had already kind of guessed this already, but was still in disbelief. I was quick to say ok.

A lady came in and gave me a solid pat down, no orifices but she did check under my bra and in my socks. When she was done I returned to find the inspector doing a very superficial shuffle through my pack. He skipped my dirty laundry bag but was very interested in my calcium supplements (he didn´t actually open the bottle, just read through the ingredients on the back....???).

Done with the calcium he turned to me and said 'ya ok, finito'and suddenly assumed a now-friendly manner and explained that 'you understand it´s part of the process of coming into Chile, that´s all.'Claro.

Anyway, after having to wait for me for 20 minutes or so the whole bus were a great audience for the story. I might have embellished it a little...

I hope the inspector enjoyed my coca lollies.

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