Driving in South America: Part 4 [ Bolivia ]

Bolivia was the only country which gave Visa on arrival for Indians, even to those entering through the land border. Price was about 100 USD (I thought I over-paid, but that was just a thought. One of my local friends confirmed that visa fees and I had paid in line with that).

The road ahead was nothing more than a dirt trail. I drove all day along without finding any suitable place to stop and eat. I ended up remaining hungry the whole day: there were few houses enroute but nothing that prompted me to stop. Thus were the first 100 kms in Bolivia.

Later I reached the city of "Yuni" which I had heard in Santiago from one of the travelers in hostel. Small city, quite famous for tourism and "no smoking" hotels just like in Argentina. Maybe it was because of being hungry the previous day or the only meal I had last night, an omelet, I fell ill, very very ill.

But time heals everything :). Next day I went to the famous Salt Lake, what a view. Retrospectively, it would have been a wiser thing to have booked a guided tour. The benefits are, you get company, a must have in such a beautiful place. But being alone has its own benefits, the following picture of my bike asserts that.

Travelling without planning has unique advantages. First, you get surprises, sometimes pleasant other times not, but always adventurous. One tip is to never read back about the place you have been: that way you will never repent what you might have missed during your visit :). Look in just one direction you want to go, that is forward.

So same way I didn't bother to cover each and every tourist checklist and I headed towards La Paz. 

When I started in the morning, I was delighted to see asphalt road ahead. But this happiness was short lived, the bike developed a technical snag and refused to go beyond 30 km/h. As they say: "When I had all the answers, they changed all the questions". 😎

This glitch was same that I had previously encountered, like at the end of Chile. I had got it checked in Calama in Chile, but I knew the mechanic was fooling me without actually doing any root cause analysis. He could not find the fault and the problem persisted. I had no option but to move forward, with the glitch. As long as bike was moving, I was a happy camper. Sometimes bike will get that sudden spurt of energy and go at 70 km/h for few minutes and THAT was a bonus to me.

I reached Oruro city, and the hostel was really nice. There I met one Japanese, one English guy and had a Mexican tour guide. We made trips to nearby village. 

It was and amazing experience interacting with local people as well as. I saw that the villagers are having same blind faith as we Indians have and after remembering what sort of rituals I saw in Puerto Mardin, Argentina, I think it's common to all humanity, because when we don't know the answers, we need to create a GOD. 

I remain in touch with Hosoi, the Japanese and met him again in La Paz. We celebrated his birthday there. He still helps me with my travel plans, for he has travelled more than me around the world.

I met a wonderful family in La Paz, stayed there for 15 days for getting visa for Columbia, without much luck though. Visa for Venezuela - it required yellow fever vaccination and 7 days after only they gave the visa.

Meantime I managed to get my re-entry visa for Brazil. 

From here I headed for most famous "Death Road ", It may be not the scariest road now because usual traffic now uses newly built road so it was pretty desolated, and one can choose his own speed. 

and then I headed towards Peru after meeting one more time with Robert, from the La Paz family.