Out of Bolivia and into Peru…

By the time I had left La Paz, I figured that the remainder of the day would be straightforward… I had dealt with the traffic and the petrol “crisis”, so how much more excitement could there be ahead…??

At this point I was about halfway to the border, and things were going quite well...!!

Well, turns out there would be plenty of it…!!

I hoped that I would never need to sample the services of the Titicaca Hospital...!! It looked run down and in dire need of some maintenance...!!

The road surface improved after the much pot-holed exit from La Paz, and we made good time, passing through the tiny villages of Batallas and Huarina on the eastern edge of Lago Humaimarca, a sister lake to Titicaca, but wholly within the borders of Bolivia…

The road then headed west, skirting the lake and climbing up onto the shoulder of a range of mountains that the lake was hemmed in by…

That was when the first spot of bother arrived to give me a hard time…

Freezing rain began falling, the drops like needles on my cheeks… I tried closing my visor but this made visibility so bad on this narrow and twisting mountain road, that I had to ride with my visor open until I found a patch of Eucalyptus trees to take shelter under… I left La Paz wearing my fingerless gloves, and by the time I had stopped, my fingers were all but numb…

At an altitude of 3 854 m, the rain can be quite cold...!! Take my word for it...!!

My riding gear was already wet, but I put my rain jacket on over it anyway, because the icy wind seemed to be whistling straight through me…!! When the rain eased off a little, I got back in the saddle and continued towards Copacabana, and the border with Peru…

After an unplanned for bath, the Big Fella stands tall above Lake Titicaca...

A ferry at almost 4 000 metres above sea level...?? Who would have thought...!!

When next I glanced at GiGi, I noticed that she was indicating that we had 22 km to go to get to the Ferry…!!

“Ferry…?? Nobody said anything about a Ferry…!!” I asked in confusion…

“Well if you are intent on using this road to take us to Peru, we need to use a ferry…!!” came the curt reply…

Never argue with a woman while doing 80 km/h on a slippery mountain road, while it is raining… It can only end in tears…. Yours mainly…!!

We eventually rode out from under the rain-clouds and cruised down to the little town of Tiquina, where the next bit of bother awaited us…

The Straits of Tequina stood before us, an 800 metre strip of water that separated Lake Titicaca from Lake Humaimarca…

I took one look at the “ferry”, and felt a certain part of my anatomy head north into my stomach…!! The ferry was a small barge-like contraption, that took only one vehicle at a time…

Mmmm... This could get tricky...!! And it did...!!

A large green bus had already pulled onto the next barge in line, and the ferryman indicated that there was space behind it and that I should ride the bike onto the barge…

With my heart in my mouth I bumped over some rough patches on the shore and rode onto three narrow planks on the left hand side of the barge… There were another three planks on the right hand side, and this was how cars and trucks rode onto and off the barge…

In between these two rows of planks were a few much thinner planks that seemed to serve as decoration only, for underneath them was Lake Titicaca….!! I still do not know how I managed to get the side-stand out and hop off the bike without falling into the water…!!

Balanced precariously on the barge across the Straits of Tiqui...

But there was worse to come…!! Halfway across the channel, I realised that there was only one exit and entry to the barge…. The bus in front of me would have to reverse off the ferry and the bike was standing directly behind it…!!

There was no way I was going to be able to turn the bike around by myself, without both of us taking a much closer look at the bottom of the lake… I banged on the back window of the bus, and did my best to pantomime that I needed help to turn the bike around… A lot of help…!!

The bus driver had to balance on the gunwale of the barge with his hands on the side of the bus to support himself, as he made his way towards me, to see what all the banging was about… The surprised look on his face when he saw the bike, told me that he had no idea I was behind the bus…!! Had I not seen the predicament I was in, he might well have reversed over the bike…!!

Within minutes he had four guys out of their seats in the bus, and manhandling the Big Fella to point in the opposite direction…!! All the while, the barge was rocking and rolling in the choppy water, which made the whole process even more nerve-wracking that it would normally have been…!!

"Don't pay the Ferryman...don't even fix a price.... Don't pay the Ferryman, until he gets you to the other side..."

I managed to ride down the narrow planks on the far shore and back onto terra firma, but not without a massive wobble that almost saw us go down…

The road out of town climbed steeply back into the mountains, and now ran around the southern end of Lake Titicaca. The views from up on the roadside were spectacular, and I stopped often to take photos… The rain had been blown away to the west, and although it was still cold up at over 4 000 m, the sun still managed to peep out from between the clouds…

Back up into the mountains above Titicaca, the road still slick from the recent rain...

The little town of Copacabana lies nestled in a bay on Lake Titicaca...

I arrived at the Peruvian border half an hour later, and took just a  few minutes to clear Bolivian Immigration… Another botheration then raised it’s head… The customs office was closed, the officer on duty having decided that ten minutes before 1.00 pm was as good as 1.00 pm itself, and had gone home for lunch…!!

I was told he would be back at 2.00 pm, and that in the mean time, I should walk across the border to the Peruvian side and get my passport stamped into Peru to save time….

The Bolivian border post at Kasani... A crossing that I will not easily forget, for many reasons...

The Bolivian officials were all young men in their early 30’s, and were extremely helpful and friendly… I did as they suggested and within minutes was back on the Bolivian side, waiting for the Customs officer…

The Bolivian immigration officers invited me to come out of the sun and sit with them in their offices…

They also allowed me to bring my battery chargers into the office, so that I could charge my video camera battery… I sat in an office with one of the senior guys and we began chatting…

He told me he was married and lived in La Paz, and could only get to see his wife and two young children on weekends… My mind flashed back to my own former and identical circumstances, and I felt my chest tighten… He then asked if I had any children… I nodded and told him I had two daughters…

He asked if I had any photos of them…

By now I was having trouble speaking… I could feel the emotions welling up inside me…

I nodded again and walked towards him, opening my wallet to extract the three photos of my girls that I carried with me… I lay them down neatly on the table in front of him… I managed to focus on the photos for only an instant, before my vision blurred and I felt hot tears roll down my wind-scoured cheeks…

I bit my lip and turned away from him to go sit on the bench against the far wall… I tried staring past him, out through the window to the mountains beyond, trying in vain to hold back the tears that still ran freely down my face…

The emotional upheaval I was experiencing seemed to come out of nowhere, surprising both myself and the officer… He mumbled “Sorry Senhor… Sorry Senhor…” a few times, holding his hand to his heart… If anything, this sympathetic gesture made things even worse… I put my head between my knees and let the tears run…

He came over to stand beside me, put his hand on my shoulder and massaged it gently… After a few minutes I was able to compose myself, and stood up next to him… It seemed the most natural thing to put my arms around him and hug him… We patted each other on the back a few times, while I drew huge breaths into my lungs to calm myself…

He asked me when last I had seen my children, and I told him that I had last seen my eldest in December 2009 and my youngest in August 2010… He told me that he could hardly wait to get home on a Friday to see his children and could not imagine not seeing them for so long…

“Es muy complicado…” was all I could say in reply to describe my own circumstances, while I gathered up the three photos and put them back into my wallet… I realised with a pang as I did so that the photos I had were of my daughters as I most clearly remembered them… All three of the photos were of them in their school uniforms, taken a very long time ago… One of them was only a photo copy whose edges were bent and tattered…

The photos of my daughters that I carry with me...

Although I had more recent photos of my daughters on my laptop, these “hard-copies” were the ones I carried with me always, and whenever I thought about them, this was the way I saw them in my mind’s eye… Two happy little girls in pony tails, laughing and smiling at something I had done or said…

Despite the huge distance between us and our infrequent communication, my daughters will always be as much a part of me as my arms and legs are… Which is as it should be, always…

A shout from outside heralded the return of the customs officer, and I gathered up my things and bid my friend the Bolivian Immigration officer goodbye… He hugged me again, and his last words to me were,

“Don’t be sad, Amigo… All will be good one day…!!”

I never did get a photo of him, or even asked his name, but I will never forget the border crossing at Kasani, Bolivia…

I never even went into the Customs office at the Bolivian border post… The official was standing on the top step leading into the building as I walked up to him… Without a word he held his hand out for my Bolivian registration papers, glanced at them for a second, and then waved me towards Peru…!!

I rode through the gate and down the hill towards the Peruvian border control, hopped off the Big Fella, and bypassed Immigration, as I had already been stamped in earlier… There I met a trio of New Zealand couples, all driving vintage Renaults… They had shipped their cars over to Chile and were on their way to Machu Picchu…

The “leader” of the expedition, Rosco Pennell, warned me that I should be careful at this border post, as it was well known for it’s corrupt officials… I walked into the Customs office and was led into a sparse office by a big burly official… He asked for my passport, and then did the old “scrutinise every page” thing… He had nothing whatsoever to do with Immigration, so I knew he was up to something…!!

He said something to me in Spanish, and I replied to him in Afrikaans, telling him that I thought he looked like a big baboon in his uniform… He blabbered sternly on in Spanish, and I matched him in Afrikaans, explaining that I thought he was a “groot doos”… (Direct translation: “a big box”… Indirect translation: ask a friend who speaks Afrikaans…!!)

I was “saved” by the arrival of Rosco and his two mates, all waving their paperwork… The official handed my passport and registration papers to a lackey, who then laboriously had to write out all the details in triplicate, because their computers were down…

I grinned at Rosco while this was being done and told him what had happened just a few moments before…

“This same guy confiscated my spare petrol the last time I came through here on my bike…!!” he told me… “Bastard probably put it straight into his private car…!!”

My ordeal with corrupt Peruvian officials was not yet over…

I went out to the bike and saw that I had once again left my key in the ignition and my lights on… When I turned the key, all I got was an ominous “click-click-click”… My battery was flat…!!

At that point I was told that I needed to go to the Police Office to get clearance to enter Peru… I pushed the bike down a short incline and stopped outside the Police office… I was ushered into a small office by three burly policeman, and courteously told to sit down on the bench that stood against one wall…

It felt like an interrogation room, and when one of the officers propped a chair up against the door jamb to prevent anybody else coming into the office, my heart skipped a beat…or two…!!

I handed my passport over the guy in charge, noticing that none of them wore name tags… The scrutiny began… I was asked about all the entry and exit stamps into and out of Chile…. I was even asked about the Boarding Passes for my flights to Korea and  Buenos Aires from New York, which I had slipped into the back cover of my passport…

“Insurance…!!” he then barked… This was a tricky one, because I had not bought any Third Party Insurance since landing in South America… I fished out my Outsurance letter from South Africa, which basically stated that I was insured for fire and theft for a period of three months, expiring in March 2010, and handed it to him…

He glanced at it, and asked where it stated that I was covered in Peru…

“El Mundo…!!” I told him confidently, “They can’t print every country’s name on the letter…!! It’s for the whole world…!!”

He grunted and then handed it back to me…

“You can’t read a bloody word of English, can you, old son…!!” (I said this to myself of course…!!)

Then the lead cop asked for 50 Soles, about R150.00… I asked what it was for…

“Registro…!!”, he almost shouted across the table at me…

I knew that Roscoe and his crew would be coming to the Police Office shortly, so I stalled for time…

“Registro, huh…!!” I replied…” Well get “registro-ing” my friend, so I can pay and get on my way…!!”

All the while I sat there stony-faced, pretending not to understand a word they were saying…

One of the other cops then took my Bike registration papers, and started typing my name into his computer… Except that the computer wasn’t even switched on…!! I also pretended not to notice that while my full surname has 19 letters, he only typed about 8 letters onto his keyboard…

“Ok…”said the cop in charge, handing my registration papers back to me… “50 Soles…!!”

“Where’s the receipt…??” I asked, getting up and pointing to the printer that was attached to the computer…

The third guy standing behind me, moved in front of me quickly, preventing me from getting too close to the dormant computer…

I sat back down and folded my arms… “No recibo, no Dinero…!!” I said as forcefully as I could, staring fixedly at the guy in charge…

I then threw caution to the winds, seeing their indecision… I stroked the gray on my chin and looked him square in the eye and said,

“I’m not some green backpacker who you think you can fleece, my friend…!!”

I stood up, picked up my passport and walked to the door, removed the chair from under the handle and walked out towards my bike… They did not make a move to stop me…

I saw Roscoe’s wife sitting at the wheel of their car and went over to tell her what had just happened to me, and asked her to warn Roscoe when he was done with Customs… She thanked me for the help, and then asked about the bike…

“Yeah, the bloody battery is flat…!!” I replied, “But I see there is a downhill stretch a few hundred metres down the road… I will push it to there and then try and jump start it…!! If I am unsuccessful, please look out for me on the bottom of the hill…!!”

A politician with a name like Portugal must lead to confusion among the voters...!!

She promised to do so, and I began the long “walk”, sitting in the saddle and pushing the Big Fella along with both my legs, until we reached the downhill section about ten minutes later… Despite the cool temperature, I was sweating profusely by the time the bike began picking up speed…

I figured I had just one go at it, and near the bottom of the gentle hill, I turned the ignition on, kicked up into 2nd gear and popped the clutch, opening the throttle as I did so…

The engine fired up with a throaty roar, and I went quickly through the gears and up to speed, riding through the border town of Yunguyo, and out onto the shores of Lake Titicaca…

Once clear of the town, where I thought the cops at the border might have called a few of their friends to set up a roadblock for me, I was able to breathe easier, going over in my mind what I had just been through…

Crossing a bridge over one of the many large rivers that flow into Lake Titicaca...

I had been warmed by many travelers that Peru was the pits when it came to corrupt officials… Roberto, my Mexican friend from Ushuaia and Buenos Aires, had sent me a mail saying I should never stop for the police in Peru…!!

Puno was only half an hour away... I was looking forward to putting my feet up and taking a well earned rest...

I dreaded getting closer to the large towns and cities, where road blocks would be more prevalent…!! I hoped that my “Insurance” letter would get me through to Bolivia, where I knew they did not accept any form of Insurance apart from their own…

I rode west along the shores of the world’s highest navigable lake at 3 800 m.a.s.l. …!! Lake Titicaca was the subject of a geography project I had done when I was barely twelve years old, and although I do not remember many of the details, I do remember my teacher Mrs Laurie, at Colin Mann Primary School, patting me on the head for job well done…!!

Titicaca is also the largest lake in South America, and has a maximum depth of over 280 metres. It is 190 km long and 80 km wide, and contains over 42 islands, many of them populated… Five major rivers feed this enormous lake, as well as more than twenty smaller streams… It has only one outlet though, and that flows into Bolivia…

As a result of global warming, the lake waters are receding at a rate of more than a metre every year… The glaciers that once melted and fed the tributaries that emptied into the lake, are getting smaller and smaller, and will one day disappear altogether… The water levels are currently at their lowest levels since the 1950’s…

We passed a variety of crops that were planted right down to the water’s edge, and in some cases actually lay waterlogged by the recent heavy rains in Bolivia and Peru… The most common crop was the Quinoa, a type of cereal, that was developed by the Incas and known as the “mother of all grains”… It is cooked in the same manner as rice is, and the leaves are sometimes also used as a substitute for spinach…

Puno lies sprawled under a bank of cloud, on the shores of the lake... It is a dirty, grimy city, that only short-sighted back-packers could enjoy...

An hour and a half after leaving the border, I arrived at Puno, the jump off point for lake excursions, including visits to a number of islands in the lake that are heavily populated… I had intended to spend the night here, but after riding through the muddy town and down to the foreshore, I decided to push on to Juilaca instead…

All the hotels I came across in Puno had no parking available, and this being Peru, I wanted a place where the bike was out of sight during the night… I recalled a recent mail from my good friend Ken from Melbourne…

He and Dariusz recently stopped in Peru to fill their bikes with the spare fuel they were carrying… It took only a few minutes of riding after that for them to discover that their fuel had been stolen and substituted with water…!!

In the middle of the night in the Peruvian Desert, they had to strip and empty their main fuel tanks, remove the fuel lines and injectors to clean them, before they could get going again…!!

Ominous dark clouds greeted my arrival in Juliaca...!!

I rode into Juliaca just as the sun was going down, and began the search for a hotel… The first three places had no parking, but one wanted me to ride up a short flight of stairs and into the reception…!! Realising that they were probably escapees from the local mental hospital, I hurriedly got back onto my bike and rode away, wondering if they thought I was Evil Knievel…!!

After a long and emotion filled day, I was happy to be under a dry roof with my bike...

By a stroke of luck, I found the Royal Inn, which had parking for just three vehicles…and one motorcycle if you had a bit of vision…!!

The hotel charged more than I wanted to pay, but judging from the amount of people queue-ing up behind me to ask for a room, I was in no position to argue… Beside, the Big Fella was safe and sound in the basement, under the watchful eye of a security camera…

It had been a heck of a day, and after a light meal, I lay down and let the events of the day play through my mind again… I was proud of the way in which I handled the corrupt policemen, happy with the way I rode and the decision I made to stop when it was raining so hard, and hyperthermia was knocking on my door….

Most of all, I thought about my “meltdown” on the Bolivian side of the border, and the gulf that was opening up between the daughters I loved and myself… I wondered when I would see them again, and how long it would take to get to “know” them again…

I resigned myself to the fact that we would probably never see much of each other again… We would always be separated by continents, as I could never see myself ever settling in Europe, where big blue skies and wide open spaces were a phenomena rather than the rule…

But that fact would never make me love or miss then any less than I always had and always will…

My room at the Royal Inn, Juliaca... One of the better places I have stayed in for a long time...!!

I fell into a fitful sleep, rain lashing the windows and drumming on the tin roof of the building next door… I woke often during the night, and at 5.00am, I got up and began packing for the ride to Cusco, 350 km away…

©GBWT 2012