We went to the Bolivian Consulate in Salta yesterday. That is the most important metropolis in northern Argentina and never significantly enticing however it will be significant for us as we’ve got reached a crossroads right here.
The Bolivian consulate can challenge us a visa to enter their nation however the paperwork calls for are extraordinary. Not solely do we’ve got to current photocopies for every of us of the standard papers however we additionally need to add them on-line. And do it in a format acceptable to the overseas ministry in La Paz. Then we hand the paper over to the consular agent (a candy useful younger girl within the consulate) within the constructing above. Then if we get a 30 day visa it’s $160 every.
We’ve to create an itinerary much like the one above which clearly is a part of a course of designed for air vacationers on mounted schedules. Additionally our letter from the lodge and campground proprietor in Villa Montes our proposed first cease within the nation is insufficient as formatted. So we have to discover an Web cafe and write out a bunch of papers, invent signatures and letterhead and add all of it onto the consular web site. In the event you too wish to waste an hour of your life you’ll by no means get again, you may go browsing and apply for a visa to go to the multi ethnic republic of Bolivia.
The highest of the web page lets you click on on an announcement made by democratically elected President Luis Arce, who not too long ago defeated an tried coup. The ostensible beneficiary of the tried coup, former President Evo Morales is now charged with the rape of a minor. No holds barred electioneering in Bolivia within the run as much as elections later this yr. Bolivia is a large number.
For a rustic wealthy in lithium, silver and pure gasoline Bolivia is a complete financial basket case. The federal government has no cash. That’s all it is advisable know. They’ve actually no money. To import gas they need to pay money to delivery corporations who ship tankers to Arica in Chile and tanker vehicles ship gas to Bolivia, and the nation has to pay money for every load. They haven’t any money so periodically gas runs out in Bolivia till they’ll scrape collectively sufficient {dollars} to purchase one other load. Bolivia operates like a penniless scholar sofa browsing. Truckers wait days in line for gas hoping the imbeciles in authorities discovered some quarters beneath the cushions. The story above says Bolivia now has no {dollars} to purchase medicines. The nation’s rice crop has been wrecked by flooding. Landslides have closed roads. Native governments haven’t any cash to pay for repairs.
You hear individuals within the US lose their minds over socialism creeping into their lives. Bolivia is the actual factor, a managed financial system floor into the dust by mismanagement and corruption. This can be a nation run by elites manipulating the financial system and ignoring judges and the legislation. And we’ve got to leap by way of hoops to get in. Sounds nuts proper?
All this chaos is 2 hundred miles away and as chaotic and badly managed as Argentina is we are able to purchase gasoline and deal with dreadful roads with out working into the issues of Bolivia. Then there’s the diplomacy. The freeway to Salta:
We’ve to purchase a visa as a result of the US requires the identical of Bolivians. Plus our two governments hate one another. Bolivia is a part of the Venezuela (entry prohibited to us however not Europeans) and Cuba axis of failure so every thing is made tough for us as a diplomatic tit for tat. It’s how diplomacy works and the way geopolitics impacts vacationers. It’s regular if silly. Argentine street hazards:
So by now you’re very moderately asking your self why can we wish to go there. We’re undecided we do. In some methods dealing with Bolivia is a ultimate examination. How can we deal with ourselves on this failed state? Can we deal with protests and shortages and a inhabitants so wrapped up in its distress it has no time for us? Argentine roadside empanadas on the market:
Our mates from Washington Julia and Konstantin of their Sprinter van wish to journey with us which is reassuring however regarding. If we go to Bolivia counting on their help and companionship we’re not counting on our selves. The query for us is that if we get previous the Soviet model purple tape to get in will we get pleasure from seeing what Bolivia has to supply. And are we able to journey there alone if our companions take a unique path? Dependence on others results in even larger difficulties generally. I survived a month touring alone throughout the Soviet Union in 1981, and I wasn’t a lot impressed by the communist risk again then after I noticed how shitty the nation seemed unable to construct even a good lodge. Me in Irkutsk Siberia October 1981:
I had a journey agent in San Francisco set up my visa papers again then and my itinerary was set for each day within the USSR earlier than I even flew to Japan to take a ship to Siberia. Now I’ve to speak myself into going to Bolivia as an alternative of taking a visit again to the coast of Chile and wild tenting on the seashore. Powerful selection. We’ll see the way it goes.
Assorted northern Argentina. No helmets and babes in arms like in Perú:
Sluggish truck main the parade. The raised white stripes make your automotive vibrate to gradual you down earlier than an intersection or faculty or harmful nook forward:
Breakfast tortillas Argentina model. She works her stand from 6 am to 2 pm.
Mountain fog out of Purmamarca:
Good dwelling in Salta:
Tree lined avenue in Salta. Decrease class neighborhoods have torn up streets.
Upkeep free freeway:
The extra bikes, the much less wealth.
A Renault 4, a automotive from my youth.
A taxi driver protest towards Uber closed the doorway to the municipal campground, the cherry on the shit sundae we had had in Salta…
So we put that in our rear view mirror and located another.
Salta has a repute for petty theft and car break ins so we aren’t avenue tenting thanks.
$16 an evening and value it.