Bolivia – December 2014

We’ve just finished a tour of Bolivia and find ourselves back in La Paz with two free days. This trip was my wife’s first experience at altitude, and they didn’t get along, but she seems acclimatized now. For our first free day, we explore the city, including a cable car ride to a lookout point and a visit to the Witches’ Market. We also head out to the nearby Valley of the Moon. For our second day, we have no plans, so we head to the travel agent attached to our hotel and explore our options.


Many years ago, I was in Peru and, near the end of my trip, spent a few days in and around Lake Titicaca. As I always like to see both sides of sights that span two countries, like Iguassu Falls (Argentina and Brazil) or Victoria Falls (Zambia and Zimbabwe), we decided on a day trip to the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. Many of our travel friends who have seen both sides highly recommend the Bolivian side. As one friend put it, “Bolivia got the titi, while Peru got the caca.”


It’s a three-hour bus ride from La Paz to the lake, and around two-and-a-half hours in, we come to a river. To cross it, everyone disembarks so the bus can be driven onto a vehicle ferry while passengers board a commuter ferry. It seems a bit complicated for a five-minute crossing, but there are bigger concerns to address. As we get off the bus, we’re told to bring our passports because this is a checkpoint. We’re crossing from Bolivia to Bolivia, so I never thought to get our passports, and the travel agent didn’t tell us.


I catch our local guide and explain the situation. He thinks for a minute, then tells us to stay on the bus because they never check inside. If they do check and find some stowaways without identification? Not to worry, he assures us, they never check the bus. So, we duck down in our seats and cross using our senses. Sounds like we’ve driven onto the ferry. Now it feels like we are floating in the right direction. Five minutes later, we slow and dock. Then the driver reappears to take the bus off the ferry. We’ve successfully crossed from Bolivia to Bolivia without passports.


I must admit that I prefer the Peruvian side of the lake, though that visit did not require being smuggled across a checkpoint. On our way back, I asked our guide if we needed to stay on the bus again when crossing back over the river. “No,” he says, “they don’t check passports going that direction.” I’m still not sure why they check passports going the other direction, but I don’t want to dive into the bureaucracy.

This travel tale is included in my collection, Can’t Get Here from There: Fifty Tales of Travel. Buy it on Amazon.

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