16-Apr-2012 La Paz, Bolivia
This is when, as Jeanne had called it, Chimu Travels dropped the ball. Our bus to Bolivia was scheduled to leave at 7:30am, but the travel agent wanted to pick us up at 7:00am. We said that it might be too late, so they rescheduled our pick up at 6:30am. We were all ready by 6:15am but the pick-up bus arrived almost 7:00am anyway. There were no representatives from the agent, they left the bus tickets at the front desk the night before and it was given to me to distribute.
The street of the hotel is also narrow – so we had to drag our luggage to the plaza where the bus awaits. The scene was like Argentina all over again. When we got to the bus station, they would not let our bus in unless we pay S10.00 (10 solis), I said yes and handed the fee from our common tip fund. When they drop us off – the bus that will take us to the Bolivian border is late.
We stopped near the border to exchange our Peruvian Solis to Bolivianos then we were driven to the border itself where we cleared Peruvian Police and Immigration. After which, we walked across to Bolivia and also went through the Bolivian Immigration. The bus was already waiting for us across the border and then drove us to Copacabana, Bolivia – 8 km from this border.
Copacabana, Bolivia - This is a photo -not a painting. Jeanne shot this from inside the bus (you could make out the glass reflection on the larger version. She used a Canon PowerShot G12 in Nostalgic Mode.
After crossing, the bus took us non-stop to La Paz. This has posed a problem to a lot of passengers as they have not stopped even for toilet break. It also went through El Alto – the city just above La Paz where it had horrendous traffic. From the top of the hill, we can see how large a city La Paz is and driving is like that of Manila where 2 lanes becomes 3. Traffic is like watching chaos working. Eventually we got to the station. This time Cintya, the Chimu representative, was waiting for us and took us to El Rey Plaza Hotel in downtown La Paz.
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