Bolivia, in search of diesel

What can I say, I was afraid of entering Bolivia. When I arrived at the FRONTERA TAMBO QUEMADO, I was amazed. Directly at the border, there was a complex for entering Chile and a few meters further on, on the other side, the same for entering Bolivia.

As the signage could be improved, a Chilean customs officer helped me 🥳.

The building was ultra-modern, freezing cold and set up a little differently to the other border crossings before. But after some help from truck drivers, I stood at the X-ray machine and a few minutes later at the wrong Bolivian counter. It would have been too easy to write the numbers from the routing slip on the windows. 

The customs officers from BO Aduanes then went with me to the Sprinter, looked at the VIN in two places and took a look in the living area. They didn't actually look for anything. Fruit and vegetables were also not an issue in the Formulario 250!

Then we went back inside and one of the customs officers took the trouble to fill in my TIP. He tried hard and was friendly, but failed because he couldn't identify a number in the DE vehicle registration document. Incidentally, the customs officer wasn't interested in the Formulario 250 either.

30 minutes later I had my TIP and two windows down I was even able to exchange dollars and CLP for BOL. Good exchange rate!

Once I had handed in my routing slip at the white house at the end of the customs area, I was effectively in Bolivia.  All in all, a good border crossing in about 1 hour!

I had expected a bad RN4 in Bolivia and was disappointed. Not really worse than the Chilean Ruta 11. I paid the toll of 10 BOL (approx. 1.3 €) in the next town, Jancoaque, and set off to discover Bolivia with a half-full tank!

Along the RN4 it doesn't look much different to Jujuy, green hills, but Bolivia is dominated by volcanoes with white peaks. The drive to La Paz wasn't really exciting at first! I didn't really want to go into the Parque Nacional Sajama, which is 4'300 meters above sea level and even higher.

After the night before, I wanted to spend the night a little lower down and sleep through the night. Unfortunately, it didn't really go very far down to La Paz. So it stayed at around 4'000 m.a.s.l. along the RN4. It's the Altiplano and not the descent from a mountain, I told myself.

I spent the night at one of the various canyons or rock formations and drove the remaining 250 km to La Plaz the next day.

From Patacamaya onward, Ruta 1 became a two-lane road, but that was the only difference. At Achocalla, a few houses on the side of the road turned into towns and then I entered El Alto.

I had always thought that I would arrive in La Paz and then have to drive up to El Alto. It was the other way around. La Paz lies in the valley, 1000 m below, and is literally encircled by the Cordillera to the east and the Altoplana to the west. Once you're down in La Plaz, you have to keep going back up to get further. 

I realized that I was only 1.5 hours away from my campsite when the traffic got heavier and heavier, there was a police checkpoint and then stop-and-go traffic. 

All the petrol stations along Route 1 were closed and had no diesel (signs “No hay Diesel”). The gas stations became increasingly difficult to find, however, as there was an endless market along the road on Sunday afternoons. From bricks to vegetables, pretty much everything was sold.

Cabs and minibuses simply stopped on the two-lane Ruta 1 to let guests in or out. In between, trucks coming from the right turned left. The road to my departure dragged on endlessly. In the end, I missed the exit because I would have had to change to the hard shoulder 200 meters beforehand.

But a few kilometers later I took an exit through an industrial area, which cost me 3 Bol. And then it was downhill from over 4'000 meters to 3'200, through villages, past the Laguna de Achocalla and other parks. Sunday was a working day and almost all the stores along the road were open. Those not working went out to eat, passed the time with barbecues or rode around on quad bikes. I was pretty tired when I arrived at the Colibri campsite.

Camping Colibri is located in Jupapina, or rather in the Valle de la Luna, a suburb of La Paz. A few hundred meters above the Rio Irpavi.

The next day I set off at 9:00 a.m. with Gert for a tour of the city. Over the next 10 hours, I traveled on the Teleférico, old buses from the 80s, and learned a lot about the history of Bolivia and Simón Bolívar.

Right at the beginning, at the Estación Teleférico Línea Verde - Irpavi, I had forgotten my cell phone in the cab! Gert, his ex-wife and the cab driver managed to get it back to me in the evening.

It cost around 50 Bol, which is just under €5, to drive around for a whole day with 2 people in the Teleférico!  Note: The official exchange rate is approx. 7 Bol = 1 USD. You can get this by using your credit card or transferring money. The cash exchange rate is somewhere between 11 and 13 Bol for 1 USD. 

The Teleférico is in top condition, super clean and like a ski gondola in the off-season, you don't have to wait long to get on. 

For lunch I tried Saltenas ala Bolivia, Api and Marraquetas, the crispiest bread rolls in South America.  “Api morado” is a Bolivian corn drink. I would compare it to a non-alcoholic mulled wine!

And this is how it is made

• https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q4XkkAlSNM8
• https://youtu.be/37kVw2gJ3rc?si=xQVRuDo5AW5eleaf

Saltenas are comparable to empanadas in Salta, i.e. much smaller. The filling of the Bolivian ones is also more liquid. There are also empanadas and the ones I tried were pretty dry and tasteless compared to the saltenas!

That evening I realized that it was already getting dark at 19:00 local time, because after showering I had to use my flashlight for the first time.

After a day cleaning the camper van and relaxing and watching the mountains, I went on a diesel hunt. The price of diesel in Bolivia is around €0.50 for Bolivians and €1.00 for foreigners. The price is subsidized by the state and if the state has no foreign currencies, then the state has a problem.

I had some tips, so I drove to one filling station after another. The first one wasn't allowed to sell diesel to foreigners. It would have been too nice, because I only had one car in front of me.

At the second one, I parked at the end of a small queue and asked. Neither “Sin Factura” nor “Pago con Dólares” helped. 

The next one was an ACB - Automóvil Club Boliviano and they had no diesel. Later on, I drove into another ACB, which also only had gasolina!

I couldn't get a parking space at a Hipermaxi in the city and, as a good German, I didn't just stand in the second row on a busy street 🧐.

Then I found the petrol station that had diesel and also sold it to foreigners. Estación de Servicio BASSAM also had a two-lane queue that was at least 300 meters long. I had to puke!

On towards Plaza Isabel la Católica. Lots of traffic and 2 gas stations with Gasolina. I was on my way to El Alto and tried my luck heading north, as I had decided in the meantime to drive to Lake Titicaca. Petosi and Uyuni were 600 km to the south and I had no desire to go hunting for diesel again in a few days.

At the point where the R1 joins the R2 in El Alto, there was nothing but a roadworks site. I decided to ignore Google Maps and follow the 2 trucks in front of me.

What can I say, there was a real street market along Ruta 2, which started right next to the lane. As the right-hand lane was also a parking lot, there were only 1.5 lanes left! The next 15 km were stop, stop & go.

I had set off at 9:30 a.m. and by the time I reached the outskirts of El Alto it was 2:30 p.m. Even if there had been a petrol station on the route, I wouldn't have seen it.

After a police checkpoint, I headed north and was about to throw up again when a two-lane traffic jam started. I cheated my way into the left lane and after about 500 m I saw that it was the back-up from the ES Playa Verde. The only petrol station as far as Lake Titicaca. 

I filled up my first 20 liter canister in the tank, one was still full. I had already noticed hikers beforehand and some also passed me when refueling. I later found out that there is a pilgrimage to Copacabana at Easter.

Lake Titicaca was beautiful and I took a break on the shore after the stress of El Alto. Somehow the lake reminded me of Lake Constance with the Alps in the background

Lake Titicaca is just a bit bigger. It is a whopping 8,372 km² in size, 15 times larger than Lake Constance, lies at an altitude of 3'812 m above sea level and is a maximum of 280 m deep. The mountains in the east rise to over 6'000 m, such as the Ancohuma at 6'427 m above sea level

After my break, I continued along the Ruta 2 to San Pablo de Tiquina. Here there were wooden ferries to cross Lake Titicaca. 70 Bol and about 15 minutes later I was across. It's a cool thing to share a ferry with a heavy truck.

There were a few stores and houses on both sides of the canal.

The road to Yampupata offered a beautiful view of the lake, the islands and the mountains in the distance. Ruta 2 was paved and pleasant to drive until the junction. The track through the mountains led to Cantón Sampaya, but I had to turn off beforehand, down to the coast. The view made up for the road, which wasn't too bad. 

Unfortunately, there were roadworks halfway down and the road ended a few meters further on. Out of necessity, I drove on an even smaller dirt road without a number, through villages that had no name in Google Maps, and after a little eternity I came back to the coastal road at Gruta de la Virgen de Lourdes.

It should have taken me 1.5 hours to get to my pitch, but it just took a little longer. But I didn't care, because when I reached the top at 5:30 pm, I had the perfect view of the Isla de la Luna with the Illampu and Ancohuma in the background.

The next day, after it rained all night and morning, I got my SOAT for Peru online. The procedure only took 20 minutes via WhatsApp (+519 67255392). I paid the approx. 17.5 € for 6 months via PayPal. What more could you want?

Maybe sunshine, because the weather wasn't forecast to be bad. But the pitch was good and I didn't mind the little bit of rain. In the afternoon the rain had passed and I had sunshine.

I wanted to visit Copacabana the next day. Copacabana, on Lake Titicaca, is known for its religious festivals, the boat connection to Isla del Sol and the Catedral de la Virgen de la Candelaria, a pilgrimage site with a sculpture of the Virgen de la Candelaria.

CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

After a journey along the coast, which was quite a challenge, Google Maps maneuvered me directly through the city center. Quite a bad choice, as the city center was a big market or carnival. With a Sprinter, you quickly reach the end and only with a bit of luck did I made it to the other end of the city.

The hustle and bustle in Copacabana came partly from the many pilgrims who would be celebrating the end of their pilgrimage on Easter Sunday, and partly from tourists like me, who wanted to come and have a look. I couldn't get a parking space on the beach, the restaurant where I wanted to eat trout for lunch was full at 12:00, as were the two others next to it.

I tried my best, but as I knew that the Bolivian customs in Khasani was closed from 13:00 to 14:00, I ended my only week in Bolivia at 12:45. I thought it was a shame, but you can't get far without diesel. 2 km further on in Peru I was able to fill up without any problems.

What I learned afterwards was, that on Good Friday, not on Easter Sunday, thousands of pilgrims arrive in Copacabana to do penance on Cerro Calvario. In the evening, a candle light procession begins at the Basilica de Virgen de la Candelaria and winds through town.

No se ha podido leer automáticamente información sobre la fuente; se asume que es trabajo propio (según los derechos de autor reclamados)., CC BY-SA 3.0, Enlace

So much a good preparation!