Bolivia

28 February 2008
Bolivia/Peru Border crossing on Lake Titicaca
                Our guide mentioned that we would be required to pay $100 USD each to enter Bolivia.  This confused us because our guide book (which was published as of March 2007) said that a 30 day tourist pass was going to be free.  It did however mention that some guards may attempt to charge an illegal entry charge.  We thought this might be the case. 
                First they said they needed a Xerox copy of our passports.  Sure enough a guy next door was doing copies for $0.25 each.  We copied those and came back to the office.  Then the guards took us to an office behind the main lobby where they were taking care of the other people that were crossing.  He then said we needed to provide a Xerox copy of our yellow fever vaccination as well.  So it was back to the copy guy and then back to the office.  Then they handed us a long form that requested everything from Social Security numbers to email addresses.  Then they brought up the $100 USD Visa that we were required to purchase.  This all seemed really suspect but they brought out a couple Visa stickers that looked very official with the price printed right on it.
                Maybe it was all the money we spent at Machupicchu, the $60 for postage on stuff that cost $20, or the lady that ripped us off selling us our bus tickets but at that point we had had enough.  Right then and there we decided to completely change our next two weeks of travel and bypass Bolivia and work our way down through Chile instead.  The $200 we would have spent just to enter to Bolivia would pay for most of our transportation all the way to Santiago.
                We apologized to the border guards, got up and left.  We found our “guide” waiting for us outside and told him we weren’t going into Bolivia and thanks for the help.
                On the way back across the border we decided we needed to get a couple photos of Bolivia before we left.

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