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i visited bolivia in Novevember 2017 and September 2024, both times for about 10 days.
in 2017 I came from Paraguay where I slept at the border where someone left me a bottle of water whilst sleeping. Next day I got lift to bolivian civilisation by first car. I then visited Sucre > Potosi > Uyuni > Salt Flats > La Paz > Chacaltaya > death rd (where I camped at begining of rd, and got lift on back of small truck next day) > Lake Titicaca. waiting times averaged 1 hour except for when heading north from Salt Flats where i waited 9 hours, then started walking, within minutes a van picked me up and asked me for money when we got to Oruro, but had no money on me and got let off. I climbed down one side of la Paz and up the other side, heading to death rd, then back again in 2024 2017 because I thought the gondola was expensive. In 2024 I used gondola as I found out one way ticket was 3 bolivianos (30 US cents)
in 2024 i started off in Cobija, where i camped the night next to a military base, right next to the border. big mistake as they played full blast heavy base music until 4am. Next day i went to cambio and changed at rate of 9 bolivianos to 1 usd. Afterwards, i hitched to El Triangulo same day, pretty good going considering majority is rough dirt road. then over the next 2 days i hitched to La Paz spotting many cayman and beaver looking animals beside the highway. i only got asked for money once, but i refused as i was sitting in the boot and got quite dusty. I visited and hiked Huayna Potosi. Then I hitched to Cochabamba easily. Between there and Santa Cruz it got very slow going so had to take several cheap buses. When I got to Mataral, i took the highway 22 as a shortcut to Ipita (very rough unpaved road), but that was a big mistake as i ended up negotiating a taxi to take me half way (20 bolivianos), followed by a 30km walk, where i was picked up by couple to a small village and they gave me 100 bolivianos (maybe wasn't so bad route after all). i then waited 5 hours for a single car to go past and they thankfully stopped, took me to Ipita and treated me to dinner. Then i got picked up within 20 minutes by 3 argentinan looking middle aged women who wanted me to come and party with them for 2 days, but i had to make ground, so they dropped me off at Morevita, where within minutes a bus came and stopped and offered to take me to Yacuiba for 70 bolivianos. i took it and when i arrived i camped in bushes behind a gas station. Next morning i walked to border visiting several cambio on-route and exchanged at rate of 1280 argentina pesos for 1 usd. i saw no cambio on argentina side. Getting through border was easy with no problems except for accomodation requirement by Argentinian officer who eventually let me through without as booking.com was taking forever to load. Also both immigration offices are next to each other which confused me at first. transport was mixture of cars trucks and buses and motorbike. Bolivian immigration officers i had no problems with and everything done within 5 minutes.[[User:Hitchhikernick|Hitchhikernick]]