Just when I thought the journey from hell was about to be over, things took a turn for the worse. The trip from Salta from the border town, Pocitos, was about 8 hours and I kinda slept so that was good. We arrived in Pocitos at about 4am and realized that we were at the wrong border town and the right one was 8 hours away. We were still at the Argentina side trying to figure out what to do, a taxi would cost $80 at least, and bus tickets between the two cities were not possible to find. We just crossed the border, first taking a taxi, then by foot in the dark and in the rain with terrible roads and rivers of muddy water all over the road. Immediately after crossing Argentina customs, were were greeted by a drunk old man that wanted us to give him money for carrying our bags, typical Bolivia. The walk to Bolivian immigrations was worse, with wierd people, rabid dogs, and muddy water covering the road. We waited around in a casa de cambios (money exchange) wondering what to do, and an old man was giving us advice on how to get to Tarija, he said the the road to Tarija from Pocitos was being fixed because as is, it is too dangerous to drive on. We just waited around, totally screwed. We went to immigration so at least I could get my visa, one less thing to worry about
The visa was a total joke, I didn´t have proof of a return ticket out of Bolivia and he didnt even care. The visa was supposed to cost $100, but since the shitty casa de cambios didnt have dollars in exchange for Argentine pesos, I had to get Bolivianos. And supposedly when you pay with the local currency it costs more.
So back the the main story... we finally decided to cross back over to Argentina because there are better chances of finding some type of transportation and the town past the border is the shittiest town in Bolivia that I have ever seen. Back on the other side in Pocitos there we were again deciding want to do and were about to just suck it up and take a cab. Then some 6 year old boy and his friend told us about a bus, kinda a public transportation that goes to the other town and only costs $6. That kid saved our lives and in return we gave him 5 Bolivianos (about 75 cents) and it made his day. So we again found ourselves on a bus, it took about 6 hours. The bus stopped about 4 times to inspect everyone for drugs, especially us since it looks wierd that a Boliviana and a American are traveling together. The inspections were very complete, they looked at every single thing in our luggage and we had to go to a separate room for a pat down and questioning every time.
After all that crap, finally we were in the right place. Now we just had to take a cab for about 3 hours to Tarija. Not too bad but a little small since we had to share with two other people. At that point nothing seemed bad compared with everything we went through.
We arrived to Bolivia and there was absolutely no inspections, questioning, costoms, nada.
After we arrived to Tarija i slept about 20 hours in a row and woke up sick, definately due to a random meat sandwich that some indian lady sold me on the bus. At least antibiotics are sold over the counter.
