Well wasn´t that fun! NOT…
We left Tupiza at approx 9am and got to the Bolivian border at approx 10:15am. Working out what to do and in what order was not easy. Some of the border police saw us walking around a little lost, so directed us to a queue, the going-into Argentina queue. It was soooo long. And it was sssoooo hot. We joined the end, and knew we were in for a bit of a wait…
Whilst doing so, we noticed a queue on the other side of the road, which looked like a going-into Bolivia queue. Upon further investigation however, it turned out to also be the leaving Bolivia queue too. Blimey!
So we left a couple of us with the bags in the first queue, while 2 of us went in search of getting a stamp finalising leaving Bolivia; which in effect meant we joined queue #2.
In the middle of this 100m strip of road, there is a sign with Bolivia on one side and Argentina on the other. Unfortunately for us, we were on the Argentinian side when we joined. The local Bolivians however did not want to be seen crossing over to the Argentinian side, and therefore created their own entry point to the queue at that sign, meaning they were pushing in front of us! ggggrrrr… We ended up getting pushed back to twice as far away from where we started. Well we were not happy I can assure y0u, but we had people in front of us allowing it to happen. So we started to make a fuss. My new best friend and I that is.
She was standing behind me and she spoke Spanish, which was most helpful, and she knew I was getting cross with the locals pushing in, as was she, so… she started to make noise in Spanish, and I in English. So much so that one of the police came to find out what was going on. Once explained, he relayed the message to the locals to go to the back of the queue, but only for the locals from now on; which meant we were no closer! ggggrrrr
With that, after a cold, thirst-quenching, life-saving coca-cola, we took issues into our own hands. Whilst I kept our spot in the queue, my partner in crime slowly but surely regained our original position. Then when the time was right, we all moved forward. We as in us, my new best friend, and her counterparts. And we got away with it, thank goodness.
Fortunately, when at the window inside the office, the Bolivian officials were more interested in talking amongst themselves when checking our passports, that even though they were stamping 5 passports with 2 people in possession of them, they didn´t seem to care.
Goal achieved; passports stamped. We had officially left Bolivia and were now in no mans land. With that, we regained our spot in the going-into Argentina queue, with our bags and the rest of us. Phew!
Ahhh, spoke to soon though. This queue was soooooo slow.
There were hundreds of people queueing and 1, sometimes 2, immigration police only manning the window. Excruiatingly slow. Every time one person got their passport stamped, the queue, per individual, inched their bags and their bodies along a little. And it was getting hotter…
Then we had more locals trying to push in ahead.
There was no way we were going to tolerate that a 2nd time, so this time we started the noise, and then the Spanish speakers, once they understood what was happening, joined in. Police arrived again, only to have this new lot moved to the back of the queue. Only they didn´t.
We spotted the same family sometime later not far behind us, but in front of our new best friend and her Argentinian buddies. So we took it upon ourselves to inform her. She then relayed it to the Argentinians and they went off!! Making more noise than we could ever have made. It worked though, and they were moved on again. We suspect though that they would have just tried again further down the line. But by this time it was not our problem as we were edging closer to THE window…
We finally got there, in front of the window, and then the young bloke serving me decided to tag-team with his comrade half way through and the process had to start again. In the meantime I had a local push in in front of me trying to do something quickly. Well that was the last straw, and he coped both barrels as did the immigration chap.
¨Go away and wait your turn; I´ve been here for 4 hours; don´t you dare¨ etc etc and then to the official ¨give me my passports now, stamped right now; don´t you dare either¨ etc etc. Suffice to say the local left, and passports were stamped, and we were finally done…
We were officially in Argentina. Now to the bus station as we had to get a bus to Salta. Fortunately we found one that was due in approx an hour, so we took that option. We had to changeover at Jutuy but that was OK. We figured we have a bit of a wait at that spot as it was only a 4 hour drive, we were departing at 4:45pm and changeover wasn´t until 11pm. Little did we know…
An hour into the journey and we were pulled over by passport control. Each and every one of us had to leave the bus, collect our bags and stand in the queue in front of their office; boys to the left, girls to the right. It was like something out of a movie, seriously.
Anyway, they checked passports and went through every bag of every person. Not a pleasant experience at all, but by then we were so over it by that stage that we would do almost anything to just get where we needed to get too. Was this incident related to our noise making capability at the border? I don´think so, but the thought did cross my mind…
We eventually arrived in Salta Argentina at 1:30am.
What a day…