Si, pero No.

How did it feel to be taken off the cushiest bus on our whole trip in the middle of the night and dumped at no men’s land in between two border crossing at 2 am and left to spend the night on the concrete doorstep of the Bolivian border office? Well, it sucked. Not only we were yanked out of our sleep but suddenly we had a problem on our hands. The man stamping documents stopped in his tracks when he was handed our three Bulgarian Passports. After a lot of head scratching and document shuffling he pulled out a sheet of paper and pointed to Bulgaria being listed together with a bunch of other countries as Category II – Visa upon Arrival. No problem, I thought, we had done this soOOOO many times. As a matter of fact I humbly considered ourselves professionals in the field. After all it usually took filling some papers, paying some money and then off we go! Yes, but No.

What followed managed to fully wake me up. The man pointed to another paper that was glued to the side of his desk and started questioning us in Spanish. Yellow Fever Certificate? Si! Somewhere in our backpacks, but Si! Typed Itinerary? Si! Well, No. We improvise and we don’t type our itineraries. Reservation for each place we are going to be sleeping? Heck No! Two photos per person on red background. Seriously? Bank statement to prove that we have enough dough to pay our way through and exit? Hmmmm. Letter of invitation by our Bolivian friends? No…Copies of all our paperwork? Ongoing ticket? What? What!? Dude, we are not trying to immigrate! We are just passing through, well, almost, on our way to Peru:(

All my protests were useless. I knew there was nothing we could do, we were caught off guard and completely unprepared. The driver of the bus looked at us pitifully, murmured that he was sorry and then unloaded our luggage. We watched as the bus disappeared in the night. So long free bubble drinks, warm chairs and movies about Señor Hércules.

Yтрото е по-мъдро от вечерта (the morning is smarter than the night) we decided and rolled our paper thin sleeping pads on the concrete covered with ants. Thank god for having sleeping bags.  We laid down hugging the small backpack with the important stuff and the camera. The heavy backpacks remained unguarded and up for grabs for anyone who could lift them up. We closed our eyes and tried to ignore the shuffle of feet and the sounds of people dragging wagons with luggage.

We raised at 6 am after bouts of intermittent sleep to find the three backpacks still with us. So far so good. Our friend from last night glances at us through the window. He had been going strong all night. I waved and nervously laughed. So it did really happen, we were stranded in the middle of nowhere. Now it was my turn to scratch my head.

We were instructed last night to get to the Vermejo bus terminal 4 km away where the immigration office was. We packed and got in a taxi. As we drove into town we could see people already slurping soup at little street stalls. Soup for breakfast? I was having déjà vu. Wait, were we in Asia or in South America? The only thing that distinguished Bolivia from the Asia I remembered was the way people looked. Old ladies with colorful skirts and black shiny braids milled around. Their cuteness made me smile, even though I had a bad feeling of what was ahead of us. The city itself was dusty and sad looking. The vehicles were old and pretty much falling apart. The buildings were unfinished. The bus terminal… well, I am not going to post a photo of it. There we found out quickly that Bolivia was way cheaper than Argentina. A dozen of figs, four bananas and one pomegranate came to a little over $1. I breathed a sign of relief. Argentina had us weeping over food prices.

The immigration office was locked. A man was sleeping on the steps. Well, at least the office was here, I thought to myself and prepared for the long wait.

At 8 am the office was still closed and the man was still sleeping. I asked a woman in the hostel next door about the opening time ‘En que hora la offisina abierta?’ My Spanish sucked but she understood me perfectly. In return I understood that the office wasn’t gonna open today, no señora. I felt a wave of panic, but she took me to the door and pointed across the bus station to the otra officina migration.

This one was also closed. The lady selling breakfast next door beckoned us over and informed us that it would open at 9. Then she handed us a fried thing, a present she said. We must have looked pitiful already:) She was super sweet and gave us more presents and coffee that was mainly milk.

The kids reluctantly bit into the greasy мекичка. Little did they know that this would be our only food for the next nine hours.

I spied what Bolivians ate for breakfast – white bread with coffee or soup. Everyone was friendly. It felt easier to connect to people here than in Argentina, that was immediately obvious. Kuba started chatting with the grandson of the мекичка lady in Spanish?! and me and the kids ran to get our passport photos.

The guy taking the photos made B hold the red cloth behind us. How was he managing when there was only one client at a time? I couldn’t ask him so I just observed. He was short and R had to bend her knees when she had her photo taken. I was positioned on a chair. A woman came in while we were waiting and requested blue background. She took forever to get ready – make up, hair brushing, rouge. Compared to her we were like three dirty kittens who just woke up in their cardboard box by the road. I hoped they wouldn’t deny us the visa based on looks.

With the photos in hand we rushed back to the office. It was open! I headed towards a man seated behind a desk, who was scanning his FB feed. He motioned us to sit on the couch and told us to wait for twenty minutes. I instead ran to make copies of all of our documents and Kuba found an ATM so he could print a receipt proving that we were loaded. Then we crushed on the couch and wrote ourselves an itinerary.

This was our view for the next hour ~

Suddenly the man in charge strolled in. I attempted to get from the couch but he went straight towards the phone and started talking in a low voice. Kuba whispered that he was chatting his girlfriend. No way, I whispered back. Twenty minutes later the man finished the conversation with ‘Te amo‘. I was fuming and it was only 10.30 in the morning. Then he started messing with the fax machine. Then he typed on the computer with one finger. Then he talked on the phone again in a hush voice. More typing with one finger.

And here was when the story got painful. We were dragged through the most annoying patience endurance test you could imagine. By 1 pm all we had accomplished was paying for the visas in the bank and bringing back a receipt. It was lunch time so the man got up and punched his time card. ‘Dude, you are not getting away before we have our visas’ was what I was thinking but all I could manage was a weak smile. I was clueless as to what getting a ‘visa upon arrival’ entailed so I gritted my teeth. He motioned for us to follow him. ‘Vamos al puente‘ he said. Al puente was the place where we spent last night. All of us and the luggage piled in a taxi older than the Earth and off we went.

I was excited! Things were moving. We were going to the border crossing where our passports would be stamped and we could go on our way. Instead a new ordeal began. We were ushered in a small office, then we were kicked out, then brought in again, then kicked out again. I was asked so many questions that I lost track. How much money do I make? How much money do the kids cost me per month? Each or both, I asked. I felt hotter by the minute. My jeans were glued to my legs and I couldn’t stand it. What is my address? Ops, on paper I live in Bulgaria so I typed my address in Cyrillic out of spite. Telephone number? Really? Cell phone? Kids’ school…The list went on and on. Time was ticking. By 3 pm we were looking something like this ~

I was seriously contemplating returning back to Argentina and heading towards Patagonia. Why not? It was a dream of mine anyway. At 3.30 pm the first visa was printed. B declared that we haven’t eaten anything. He looked like he was going to pass out. My sugar was down but I was shitless to leave the office and slow down the process. I yelled at my ‘friend’ to get us from the fish stand when he needed us and then we dragged our backpacks there. The fish arrived and we grabbed it with our hands and started stuffing it in. We were famished!

In the middle of demolishing the food the man in charge showed up and called B for photos. Then R. They both ran towards the office with greasy fingers clutching a piece of potato.

It took another 1.5 hrs before all of our passports were ready to go. Kuba had his stamped with no fuss. No visa was required for Polacy, lucky him. I put the passports in my pouch and stuffed it under my jeans. The fish was eaten. All of it. Things were starting to look up when my friend came again and took the passports away for some last minute check up that he forgot to do. I was beyond caring. He brought them back in 15 minutes and I stuffed them in the pouch and then under my jeans again. I was determined to keep them safe.

At 5 pm we were on the bus to Tarija. We fell asleep almost as we were boarding not noticing that the bus was beaten down and there was no chance of someone offering us cold drinks.

Hola Bolivia was my last thought before I passed out. No, I didn’t. I simply passed out.

~ M.