April's Fool and a Not So Deadly Train
Bolivia was a complete "black box" for me. Who knew what was inside and how I would come out the other side? All that clearly stood between joining my Aussie friends and Patrick, in crossing the border today, was a $100 Visa.
So, I headed down the street to the Consulado de Bolivia. As a preface, I really don't have any problem with the recent establishment of a $100 Visa for United States citizens. Reciprocity of immigration fees is fair game in international politics.
What was logistically retarded was for Evo Morales to simply copy the U.S. Visa process requirements in his country. I understand his intent, but he is the leader of a third world country with practically no intellectual infrastructure to be able to handle the new process. The consulate assistant pulled out a binder of instructions and began to read and not very well at that... lips moving and slowly sounding along to a barely sliding finger. A classic example was that the form required that I fill in my arrival and departure flight information, of which I had none, since I would be arriving by foot and leaving by bus. The question of what to do was elevated to the next assistant, then to the consulate general and ultimately a phone call had to be made to the capital of La Paz. Now, repeat this process for every third line of the form. A ten minute process was taking hours.
Finally, after four hours of third world procedural hell instilled by an uneducated farmer President, all I needed to do way pay the $100 USD fee. Only having Brazilian Reals, the consulate offered a favorable exchange rate that equated to paying over $130 USD. Thankfully, Patrick being a trusting soul loaned me the cash in USD. OK, this process was about to end when the consulate then popped a $20 USD "same day processing fee" on me, a.k.a. extortion. For this they of course offered the same crappy exchange rate inflating the amount to about $26 USD of blood money. The perfect and obvious ending was a receipt for the $100 USD and not the $26 USD. Who was April's fool now?
Trying to put the half-day hell in the past, we all walked across the border. What a "shady" experience this was. One would think that we needed the typical immigration forms. When Kelly asked the primary official "if any were needed" he said, "no"... this was while the secondary clerk was nodding his head "yes", just out of view of the first. Paperless, the group crossed the border, entering a completely different world.
The three of us really had no desire to take the "Death Train", but a rail strike was in affect and the higher class train was not operating. So we climbed aboard the mysterious rail vehicle. As it turns out, the train is not named the "Death Train" because it moves so slowly that you could practically run along side and keep up, therefore the overnight ride can easily bore a passenger to death, but because locals used to sit on the roof of the train and fall from the jolting cars to their death. Thankfully, no locals climbed aloft on this particular trip.
The slow progress and open windows provided an "easy chair" viewing platform with complementary foot ventilation.
Bolivia still maintains a naval force for two bodies of water, this little Pantanal puddle and the shores of Lake Titicaca. Bolivia was actually much larger, as little as a hundred years ago. Brazil decided that the gas reserves in the Pantanal were too irresistible to pass up, so acquired about a 20 percent of Bolivia's total land mass to the East. Not to be left out, Chile insured that Bolivia would loose a full 30% of it pre-acquisition area by taking possession of the coastline. For all intents and purposes, Bolivia has been landlocked for the better part of a century now, with no hopes for retribution.
Morgan and Kelly were well prepared for a night of jostling on our way to Santa Cruz, or at least had the right "thumbs up" attitude.
Patrick joined in the favorable review, which may actually have been better collectively translated into "at least we were not stuck in Puerto Suarez for the night."
At every creeping stop along the rail line, vendors walk the length of the train selling everything from drinks, to empanandas con queso, to barbecue chicken or beef.
The passing countryside droned by at mediocre velocity. If we could just make a little more speed, a decent apparent wind would develop to cool the humid heated cars.
The other downside of crawling through the mosquito infested Pantantal was that we were sitting victims, supporting the indigenous food chain. None of us anticipated needing our mosquito repellent on the train, so the entire supply was safely packed in the closed luggage boxcar. We were now hopeless to the nocturnal feeding frenzy, while trying to catch a few winks of rest.
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