A Northerner and two transvestites board a bus in La Paz. How long does it take them to get to Buenos Aires?

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It sounds like the start to a bad joke, right?? That is probably the only way to describe the experience I had on the bus down from La Paz to Buenos Aires.

Answer is in short 64 hours, but it is only supposed to take 48 hours. Incidences, which range from the bus waiting for passengers that don’t have the correct travel documents to the Argentineans still being bitter over the Falklands. If anyone has 3 days spare, has a British passports and fancies and adventure, all for $60 then I suggestion the bus ride from La Paz to Buenos Aires.
Greetings all. Hope everyone is well from wherever in the world you are reading my latest blog entry. I have taken a bus from La Paz, Bolivia to Buenos Aires, Argentina to meet my friend, Sarah who has come across from the U.K to keep me company on some wine tours for the next 2 weeks. I had the options of either travelling by plane (which is 3.5 hours and £200) or travelling by coach (supposed to be 48 hours and is $60). I decided that as I am short on money and long on time then the bus option would be ok, , but as it is in South America, nothing is quite as it is advertised.

La Paz was the first stop for me in Bolivia. An overnight bus from Cuzco was the easiest way to get across the border, or so I thought. The bus arrived at the border town of ...... at 7am. Already at this time there was a queue about 150 people trying to get a stamp out of their Peru so they can head across the border into Bolivia. To make matters worse there are only two counters open in the immigration area (disused chicken shed) so I can only image how long this is going to take. Having been asleep for the last few hours the last thing I want to do is to queue. I spot an official walking up and down the queue answering any questions people might have on getting their stamps, paper work needed etc. I thought to myself that I have nothing to lose. South America the land of corruption, where everyone is trying to earn that ‘quick buck’. Looking at all the cash I had left in Soles in my pocket (which was only 25) I wandered across. I asked him if 25 soles was enough to get me to the front of the queue, which is about £5. Looking back now, I can see this was probably not the smartest thing that I have done since I have been out here, but the heat was starting to pick up so I think that might have affected my judgement, coupled with the fact I had just woken up and wasn’t in the right frame of mind to queue hours (or so I thought it would take hours). I am glad he saw the funny side as he laughed and walked off; obviously I started my figure a little below the official bribe limit in Peru. In the end, it took 2.5 hours to get my exit stamp, and then it was a 40 second walk down the road and then an additional 5 minutes to get stamped into Bolivia. The whole experience exhausted me, so I slept for the remaining three hours it took to get to La Paz. As soon as I reached the bus station in La Paz, I looked for a ticket which would get me down to Buenos Aires in the quickest and most pain-free way possible. I arrived in La Paz on Sunday and found a direct bus which was leaving Tuesday night direct to Buenos Aires for $60. This was perfect, it gave me chance to look around La Paz and then I would get into Buenos Aires by Thursday night at the latest, perfect. I bought my ticket and then headed to my hostel.

I met a couple of English guys in my hostel, Jim and Ben and that first night we tried some of the local beer, Bock which we later found out after a few bottles was 7% in strength. The following morning was a complete write off, along with most of the afternoon. Ben and I made it to the Mercado Negro (Black market), where we wandered around a few of the stalls but then realised that we couldn’t go on much more and headed back to the hostel for food and some more sleep. That night I met a friend Julien, who was also in La Paz and a few of us booked to mountain bike the ‘Most Dangerous Road’, known locally as El Camino De La Muerte. 200-300 travellers are killed yearly along the road which is 65km in length. All of this is downhill which makes it particularly attractive to people who want to play with their lives and get a rush at the same time. Roughly 13 cyclists have been killed on this road since 1998. The route starts at 4,800 metres above sea level and finishes at 1,185 metres above sea level. You don’t realise how dangerous it is until you actually cycle down the route and experience firsthand that one wrong slip, one wrong turn and its bye bye. To begin with, visibility was low due to lots of fog/clouds, whichever form of precipitation it was; however the temperature and the rain didn’t help our cause either. It has to be one of the best things I have done since coming to South America. For about 3 hours, you are flying down these mountain roads, with no barriers and if you slip/slide/brake to late and if you haven’t got a parachute then you are definitely taking the quick way down, and in some points it is a 300 metres sheer drop. To start with you are cautious, but toward the end we all were flying down, trying to beat each other on the turns, nothing too crazy, but good guy banter, and of course we waited for the girls in our group who were at the back . On the way back I decided to grab 40 winks before my 2 day bus journey to Bolivia. We headed back to the tour guides shop, picked up our photos and my ‘I survived death road tee-shirt’ and I headed to the bus station to get the 8.30 bus. I took a taxi to the bus station, which on the way the driver nearly takes out a whole family crossing the road. As they stop to exchange pleasantries the woman starts shouting at me, for what reason I wasn’t sure then. I did my usual ‘ ah, si, si, mucho loco hombre, si, si’. I had mentally prepared myself for 2 days on a bus. I brought food, water, supplies. I even charged my lap top up, so when my iPod battery died, I could recharge it from there. (Up there for thinking, down there for dancing. Mamma raised no fool) I knew it was going to be rough, but I couldn’t image how rough it was going to be. The only type of seat this bus company was offering was a semi-cama service which meant that your seat reclined so you didn’t have much space, but you could try and at least get some sleep. I would recommend a cama service for anyone as stupid as I in undertaking a two day bus journey. I booked a seat at the front of the bus, which meant I had a little bit more leg room, but also had the pleasure of seeing how crazy the coach driver drove. The first part of the journey was across to Santa Cruz, about 18 hours away, which is not really the way to head. Santa Cruz is east, and the border is south. Anyway, we didn’t pick anyone up in Santa Cruz and before even getting there we stopped for 3 hours in the middle of nowhere to pick up some more passengers.

I noticed a fellow westerner on the bus (thank god I wasn’t alone), and he turned out to be an Aussie, Olivier. We got chatting when the bus stopped for food and shared travel stories etc. Olivier was sat behind two passengers who could help but catch the eye. South American Transvestites, which I have not see too many off whilst I have been travelling around. This just summed up the type of journey I was going to have.

After the bus left Santa Cruz it was another 12 hours to the border. We arrived at the border at 3am. The Bolivian side looked to be closed, but after an hour of waiting the office opened and the officials checked our documents. That took about an hour in total. Everyone then got onto the bus, and drove about 20 metres across to the Argentine side where we waited for an hour. After an hour of waiting, wondering what was happening; an official from the Argentine side came on board and took peoples documents. We were left waiting for another hour and a half until someone from the Bolivian side came onto our bus and made us fill out some disclaimer documents about the amount of money we were carrying didn’t exceed $10,000. I thought to myself, if I was carrying $10,000 on me, I sure as hell wouldn’t be travelling on this budget coach hating every second that I was forced to spend on it. I filled it out and handed it back to the Bolivian immigration agent. It was another 40 minutes after that incident until out passports came back from the Argentine border control. Just as I thought it was time to make a move and continue without journey we were advised that all luggage on the coach would have to go through an X-Ray machine and also be individually checked. At this point I start to get a little nervous (not because I am carrying any drugs or guns), but I have a couple of packets of coffee in my bag and I didn’t want to give these guys any excuse.

I am the last one in the queue, both bags in hand and my passport in my pocket. ‘De donde ver’ demands a voice at the X-Ray machine. ‘Londres’ I reply, and immediately it dawns on me that these guys are going to make my life hell, not because I am carrying coffee, or even because of the fireworks that I had purchased in La Paz and forgot I had them in my bag. They were going to make my life hell because I was the only British passport holder on the bus, and the Argentines are still bitter because 27 years ago they tried to take some land that wasn’t there’s and got smashed in 74 days. I think the next time I cross the border I am going to have the National Anthem on my iPod, I will be wearing a 3 piece Union Jack suit complete with a British Bulldog under my arm. So, it gets to my turn and they turn my rucksack upside down. Every bit of clothing was inspected, all my toiletries were opened to check that they were what they claimed to be and the coffee I was carrying was opened in order to check that it was coffee. After 15 minutes the whole of my rucksack had been inspected and the official just turned to me and said ‘go’, sorry, after they had taken the fireworks and apples I was carrying. Just as I am going to put my rucksack on my back, I hear a familiar voice. It is the guy who asked me where I was from. He asks to leave my bags and follow him. So, not wanting to disappoint, I followed him into a room and awaited my next instructions. His next instructions were to remove my top, jacket and to turn out my pockets. I tried to say to him that of all the suspected crack dealers on my bus, you have singled me out for a finger search. There intelligence must be way off. I did like he asked. He patted me down to check that I wasn’t carrying 5kg of crack cocaine that he was half expecting to find when he searched me. He told me I was free to go. So after an X ray check of both my property and myself, a thorough examination of my bag and being asked to remove clothing I was free to go. I grabbed my back, put it back on the bus and we were ready to move onwards to Buenos Aires.

100 metres further down the road, there was another security checkpoint. The coach pulls up and everyone has to get off again, with their bags and the security officials go through each bag again. I wasn’t sure if this was necessary so close to the other check point. I had literally just finished putting my jacket back on. I wondered if it was appropriate if I turned up to the front of the checkpoint without a stitch of clothing on explaining to them I was a veteran now and knew what to expect, just warm you hands up first. There were two queues at this inspection, one for male, one for females. Again I am at the back of the males queue and I glance across and see the two transvestites in the female queue. Another thought crossed my mind in that I was less likely to be a drug smuggler as these two were of being female, but nothing happened with them. I at least expected at some point during the journey that they would take some form of abuse or beating but nothing. The British get treated worse than transvestites went crossing borders in South America. After 30 minutes we are on our way again, this time I didn’t have to remove anything clothing, but one of the military guards did mention something out the Falklands, but this was just in jest, well I took it that way. As I was boarding the bus for the second time within an hour, I asked the bus driver if there were any more stops. He replied there were four more. What do you say to that? Already in my mind I know that the two day time limit has gone, I will be on the bus for much longer. The other check passed, for only one incident, were four guys on the bus has similar numbers on their passports, so they were taken away for ‘questioning’ as they claimed they didn’t know each other but similar number indicated that they should have been family. For another 90 minutes we needed to wait until these four guys were released and then we could continue. By 4pm, on the second day on the bus we were only near Salta, which 21 hours is by coach to Buenos Aires, so it was then I prepared myself for my third night on the bus.

We reached Buenos Aires at 11.30am the following day. I have never been so happen to be in a city in all my life. I could have kissed the tranny's I was that happy, well maybe if there was money involved. I got a taxi to my hostel, which messed up my booking. The euphoria of being in Buenos Aires was short lived so I went around the corner to the hostel I stayed at nearly five months previous, when I started my trip in Buenos Aires. It was weird walking through the door, as in that space of time I have done so much and had so many fantastic experiences, but at that point in time I was desperate for somewhere to drop my bag and shower. The hostel had dorms available, but check in wasn’t until 2pm. The time I arrived was 1pm, and they wouldn’t let me sneak a shower before I checked in. I hadn’t showered in 3 days, and these guys won’t even let me have a five minute freshen up. Instead of trying to argue I just rolled up on one of the communal couches, and slept until 13.59, at which I asked for my keys and headed straight to the shower.

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Comments

[The Shref]

lovely stuff!
Sounds eventful buddy! too right about the 74 day shoeing a few years back! sounds like you handled it better than i would have done! you must have feared getting a digit in the tradesman when they stripped you off! mate i cant believe uits almost 5 months since we got to Argie! Work is sucking massively at the mo, could do with just heading back out but alas no chance at the mo!