Goodbye Chile

Time to cross the border from Chile to Bolivia with the intention of making it to La Paz that evening. An early start had us at the border in good time to a long line of waiting trucks. Being a moto we had a separate line so no dramas. But the difference from Chilean customs, all computers etc to Bolivian customs, all paper and hand written was like night and day. Even finding where to go took time and effort.


Once on the road again the high mountain pass was stunning. Volcanos, lakes, and a multitude of wildlife all impressed., again the landscape was too big to capture adequately on a camera.

The rural areas we travelled through in Bolivia were very communal , labour intensive with small holdings with a few livestock and small crops. The livestock had to be tended everyday with each animals leg hobbled or roped to its feed area. This was usually right on the road side or in the towns themselves.

At a garage at the turnoff to La Paz we met a chap heading south on a huge Harley. I had the hood up changing the fuel mapping for the fuel injectors as we could now only get 85 octane fuel. We swapped information and he headed off to the border to get to Chile that evening. He had only had trouble once on a muddy track and dropped the bike a couple of times. No mean feat on a bike that size and he was only a wee chap.

It was not long before La Paz loomed on the horizon. With only one way in and one way out it would be a breeze. Wrong.

Our timing was way out. Being a Saturday afternoon, market day was on, only it took up the entrance road into LA Paz, the one we happened to be on. It became a mad house with every minibus, and there were heaps of them, all trying to get from three lanes onto a one lane, one way street to bypass the market. We had to go with the traffic and fight for our space on the road and ended up going back the way we had come in.

With the bike not liking the slow idling on the crap fuel we decided to pull over, have a rest and drink, talk to the police, road cleaners and anyone else that wanted to talk and let the mayhem pass. An hour later everything had died down and it was into LP as normal. What a sight coming over the brim and dropping down into the city. A good hotel in the plaza and all was well with the world. A couple of days looking around and meeting some really nice people and it was to be the turn of Peru. Up out of the town and where is the turn off to Peru. You can guess. Bolivia does not like road signs of any type, even street signs do not exsist in places.  Many twists and turns later and route to Peru was in sight. Finding the border crossing was a game of Bolivian needle in the haystack. You go there, no it was back there, or maybe it could be there. This is for trucks only and there is no power on so you motos go back that way, pointing a finger in any direction he felt that was close enough to the town. Yet again no signs.

What a contrast yet again Peru customs was to Bolivia. Onto Puno for the days end but nothing this day was going to be that easy. We ended up having to play dodgems with buses and cars for 50km on the most pot holed sealed road we had ever seen. It was quicker at times for us to ride on the gravel on the side of the road.

Puno and a nice hotel in the middle of town and we were set for a few days exploring .