Bolivia, Leap of Faith

Certain things scare travellers-- getting mugged, being kidnapped, dropping your passport in the toilet-- and these are things you work to avoid. But sometimes fate conspires against you, and you find yourself in a precarious position wishing for the moment you were home where everything is routine, and you know what´s going on.

I just got through one of those situations; first, I travelled to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile with very little money since I was about to travel into Bolivia and didn´t want useless Chilean pesos with me. But San Pedro exists for tourists, and as such is very expensive-- and the one ATM in town didn´t work. So far, that´s not a problem. I had enough money to pay for my Bolivian visa ($100, thanks President Bush for making everyone hate us) and there was one tour agency that took credit cards, so I left Chile with about $8 in the wrong currency and some emergency money in dollars. But things get hairy when you reach the Bolivian border-- a concrete shack in the middle of nowhere-- because they tell you need to pay for the visa, but that you can´t pay for the visa at the border, but rather 3 days inland at the terminus of the tour I was on. So they won´t take your money, won´t give you a visa, and won´t let you travel onwards with your passport, because then you would have no incentive to pay later. So... my tour driver held on to my passport for 3 days, joking that he´d lost it or left it at the border; so while everyone from europe or australia or brazil told me not to worry about it, I was worrying about it.

Fast forward 3 days-- we reach Uyuni, and retrieving my passport takes a backseat to everyone trying to arrange transportation out of this little dungheap of a town, which again has only one ATM, not working. But in the end, it all works out. I get my passport back, chitchat with the customs officials about studying in Guatemala, arrange a private jeep to take our disintegrating group to Potosi, and finally get to relax and enjoy the past few days. The altiplano lakes, with white, blue and pink water; the herds of llamas and vicunas, with pink and green tassels around their ears; the flamingos and salt islands; the picturesque rock formations; and best of all the Uyuni salt flat, the largest in the world, which was under about an inch of water due to the rainy season. It creates a reflection of everything above and around you, and gives the impression of you standing on a mirror, or floating through the sky. It´s really unlike anything I´ve ever seen.

And then we reach Potosi, me with a group of friends, and we celebrate being in a city once again. Working ATMs, restaurants, girls on the sidewalk; all the trappings of civilization. And once again I´m glad to be travelling. Bolivia immediately has a sense of beauty that Chile and Argentina lacked. The sun setting on the switchbacks, the simple pueblos at night, the abundance of stars you see at 12,000 feet. Poor and wild, at the middle of my trip I´ve reached the heart of South America.