Somehow I always manage to screw this up.
2010
I get to a town called Desaguadero and learn that the $135 fee for the Bolivian visa would only be accepted in cash. I'll find an ATM. Nope. No ATMs in Desaguadero. The nearest ATM? Puno, a five-hour cab ride up the Peruvian shoreline of Lake Titicaca.
It's getting dark. I find a driver and wait an hour for him to fill his car with emough passengers to merit the trip to Puno. It's bitterly cold and the cab driver refuses to roll up the windows or turn down his blasting chicha music the entire way there. We get to Puno, which is a shit-hole, and the driver just drops me off at some random corner, refusing to show me where the hotels were. I haul my bags around until I found the Plaza de Armas. I correctly assume would that here I will find the most luxurious, prestigious hotel within a hundred square miles. I bargain my way down to an incredible deal for this prestigious place - something like $50 for the night. Not in my budget but not going to to break the bank either. It was a room I would never be able to afford anywhere else.
I dine alone in hotel's large, fancy restaurant, eating a llama steak with a pisco sour on the house (part of the deal). I take the hot shower of a lifetime, and on my massive bed, wearing a warm, fresh hotel bathrobe, I watch a John Lennon documentary. What played out as a terrible day turns out to be one of the most delicious memories of my trip.
The next morning is bright and warm. I withdraw the cash I need and check out of the hotel. I find a bus heading back to the border. Waiting to leave, I pull out a pocket copy of the Dhammapata. "Your brother is like you. He wants to be happy." I realize how much frustration I have built up inside, how much ridiculous anger I have towards South Americans for their differences, for the difficulties of my trip (most of which were self-inflicted.) Still sitting there in the sun, the Buddha's words bring me to tears. The bus ride around Lake Titicaca is nice. Near Yunguyo, I get off and board a smaller bus, which will make random stops in the middle of nowhere. I look around and see campesino women bounding down hills to catch the minibus. In the bus, they chatter in Quechua.
2014
Before we left, I had to renew my passport. I made sure to bring the old, expired passport with me, as it contained my Bolivian Visa, that vise I'd purchased with the cash from Puno, which would be valid for another year and a half.
Ginny, Brendan, and I took an all-night bus from Cusco to Puno, where we transferred to a bus that would cross the border and arrive in Copacabana. Ginny and I were drifting off to sleep by the window, looking out at the lush pastureland that rolls down the hills and reaches right up to the blue waters of Lake Titicaca. It was a beautiful blue-grey morning. It felt kind of like Ireland.
Then a man came and asked us to either have our visa in hand or the money to buy a new one. I searched my bag. I searched it again. Couldn't find my old passport. I begged the driver to prematurely open the luggage doors so I could check my main bag. Still nothing. So I'd have to buy a new visa. But...I didn't have cash. Again. And there's no ATM at the border.
I have no idea what happened to that old passport. I know that I packed it and had it in Perú. I lost it somewhere. I have lost several important things on this trip. It's one of my biggest shortcomings, this absentmindedness. I've inconvenieced us in many ways. I feel like maybe by sharing this fault of mine with you all, I get some kind of redemption for it.
In the bus, we were silently panicking. What if I couldn't enter? The three of us would be forced to split up, in two different countries, in the middle of nowhere. I managed to barely scrape together $135 from Ginny, Brenny, and my leftover Peruvian money. It literally came down to dollar bills that the Bolivians were trying to reject because they had creases in them. But eventually they relented. Then they even brought it to my attention that I had overpaid them by a small amount.
In Copacabana, we flopped down in a dingy hotel room, heaved sighs of reliefe, and I searched my pack one more time for the passport that was still gone. Not being able to find it was relieving in a way. It sucks to pay $135 for something you've already purchased, at such an effort, then and now.
I felt pretty shitty about the stress I'd put everyone through, but we ended up having a pretty amazing time in Copacabana. It's almost like a rough-shod New England fishing village, populated mosty by backpackers and a small amount of campesinos. .
We took a nap and woke up to a gorgeous sunset over the lake. Outside our window I heard music and followed it. I found an old man just playing a mandolin for a group of children by the docks. He allowed me record four songs, dedicating them to the whole world. I'll be posting those recordings soon.
In Copacabana, it only made sense to eat lake trout at every meal. We went to a bar called Nemo's run by some chaps who had it on point with the drinks, the ambience, and the music, and doing it obviously on a shoestring. Awesome Chilean guitar-and-cajón duo, playing renditions of Django Rinehart, Lou Reed, and old numbers from all over South America. We drank chuflays, the national drink of Bolivia (white brandy called Singani, with ginger ale). I had an amazing high-gravity beer called Judas, from La Paz. I also bought some overpriced weed from a girl whose kid started wrestling with me in the street.
Ginny and Brenny went to sleep and I went down to the docks. Imagine this: a mob of young Chileans and Argentines, with a few guitars, cajóns, an accordion, and a guira. A raucus group sing-along that flowed seamlessly from folk to pop to oldies to communist anthems (all in Spanish).
There was distant lightning out on the lake. I was offered a guitar and made an aborted attempt to play a song. Mostly I just made chit-chat, recorded songs, and traded weed for swigs of wine and cigarrettes. It was pretty awful weed, full of seeds and not very potent. After a few hours I got tired a listening to songs I'd never heard of and couldn't follow, and I headed to bed.
The cool spontaneous things that happen when you're backpacking. Bolivia is always a hassle, but I do believe it's worth crossing that fucking border.
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