Hitchhiking the World: Chap 8 (Chile, Argentine & Bolivia)

---March 13th 2016---

After a 26-wheelers drive to the border, and 3h stuck in line, I finally got in. Chile, the country (with Argentina) that all throughout South America I’ve heard how easy hitchhiking would be. Maybe I’ve anticipated this country a little too much as 15:30 (hour of entrance) turned into 16:30, 17:30, 18:30 and finally, at 18:45, 3h15 minutes after rising my thumb, in near darkness, a truck stopped by. I ran and entered the car, happy to meet my first Chilean, but without much surprise, it turned out to be a Bolivian, I guess they like helping a little more than their neighbour. Normally, I don’t hitchhike at night, as I want to see the landscape, but after 3h15min of waiting, I had no choice but to do an exception. We drove for a few hours into the dark desert highway until we reached Huara, a small trucker town at the intersection of the Pan-American. Having reached the main road, and wanting to see what the driest desert on Earth looked like, I decided to hop off of the truck, eat, find a place to spend the night (a desert field filled with a whole lot of nothing) and went to bed.

The next day, I got a little luckier as I respectably waited 10min, 40min, 1min and 55min. Needless to say; Chile wasn’t in for a good start. I was getting more and more frustrated by this country, and more and more happy I was heading for Argentina in not too long. I had an hour wait of average, rather than the typical 20-25min. But then, things started to change. I got two very quick rides from the main highway to Calama and from there to San Pedro de Atacama. This last ride was to my surprise driven by two girls, not something common in the Latin countries, and they help me out quite a bit as once in town, one of them, Pamela, offered me a shower and showed me around town. Finally, as the Sun disappeared, she invited me to join a group of her friends which had a free camping site.

The next day for me was going to be a first. Back in Torotoro, one of the tourists had told me he managed to get a few free tours telling agencies he could act as a translator. This meant for me I could visit Atacama for free if I volunteered as free translator. I went from a tour agency to another telling each one (in Spanish) “Hi, my name is Eric, from Canada. I’ve being hitchhiking around the totality of both America’s to explore it’s nature; why I’m here in Atacama, but I don’t have money to join in on any tours. That being said, I do speak French and English, and understand Spanish. Do you think it would be possible to tag along for a tour, for free, and I could help translating for the clients who don’t understand Spanish?” My first time around town wasn’t successful as they all told me to come back at either 15h or 21h. I little bum but with slight hope, I got back to camp and hung out with my camping buddies. They offered me lunch and at 15 o’clock, I was back in town revisiting the agencies. Still nothing!!! More and more sad knowing I wasn’t going to find a tour, I walked back toward camp.

“Eric, Eric, wait!!!” I heard. I turned, and one of the ladies working for one of the agencies ran toward me. “Eric, are you still free or did you find a tour?”

“I’m free. Why?”

“I just got a call; I can’t act as a guide for the night, so if you want, you can help us with the translation. It’s the Laguna Cejar tour. Are you interested?”

Of course I was. We got back in, told her boss, and there it was, I had a free tour for the afternoon. The feeling of happiness was mixed with a little bit of anxiety as my Spanish isn’t great, especially my understanding. On the other hand, when I was in Torotoro, I did a tour where I acted as translator, and I was fine. I guess all I had to do was to try.

I was introduced to Sophie, the guide, and we got to a first Laguna. She started her regular speech, as for me, despite not understanding the totality of what he said, I needed to listen real well and repeat everything in English. After having explained the safety, and explained this lagoon had nine times the concentration of salt then the ocean, we got off the car, and went for a swim. The feeling form the salt concentration was incredible. It was almost impossible to stand straight in the water as Archimedes Force would push us to the surface. Obviously, this swim meant we got out covered in salt, so we had to take a shower before heading back in the car.

For a guy who usually sink, it felt wierd

We than got to the next location: two sinkholes in the middle of the salt flat, the Tebenquiche Spring. Being 40m deep, and about 2m below the slat flat, we could run and jump in the pool. What a blast it was!! Finally, we got to our third destination, the dry Tebenquiche Laguna. This sign was perfectly synchronised with a beautiful sunset. Low rays of the Sun were reflected on the deep blue water leaving an orange strip of light pointing at the Licancabur Volcano now colored in a purplish pink. After a few pictures, we got a free cocktail and headed back in town.

As I walked toward the different agencies to see if they had any opening for the next day, I got intercepted by the first lady I had talked with. She and her agencies really wanted to help me out. She told me she could host me for a few days until I got to see everything. That was perfect, I ran to my camp, but things weren’t right, I couldn’t see my tent, and the lady told me the police had paid a little visit to my camping buddies. I ran toward my tent spot; to my relieve, my tent had only being knocked off. My second concern was for my computer, but it was there. I packed everything rapidly and got back to the agency. In the meantime, the boss had come. I explained my desire to explore the region as a translator, she offered me to stay for the night in the shop as it was better for me and start to sale ticket in the morning, and in exchange, I could do the different tours. This was perfect, a nice place to sleep for the night, two free tours for the next two days, and a house I could camp at for the next days. She offered the key of the place, all the information to sale the different tour, and I was set for the night.

The next morning, I had to start working as there was no room for an extra guide in the tour for the Geyser de Tatio. I opened the agency, waited a little while inside, an eventually, realized I had no choice but to do what I hate most, hassle people into buying one of our tour. I stood all day, up to 4pm, trying to grab the attention of the tourists passing by. Not very efficient, I not only didn’t make a single sale, but could get any attention all day. That being said, from 16 o’clock to 20 o’clock, I got to tag along for the Valle de la Luna tour. Everyone on the tour spoke French, so as an English translator (already had a French speaking guide), I had nothing to do. This was perfect; I had all the time to take pictures while learning about the area. We visited the Coyote lookout, giving a great overall view of the Valley, visited the Valle de la Muerte, the three Marie (three salt towers), the Amphitheater, and the Major Dune where we waited for the sunset.

what a nice way to finish the day (The Amphitheater)

That night, I got to stay at Sophie’s house. As we were eating supper, her telephone rang; it was Ingrid, her boss. She needed a guide for the morning tour at the Geyser de Tatio. Being sick and extremely tired, Sophie couldn’t make it, but instead, I was called in. Having only 5h until wake up time (3:30am), Spohie gave me a crash course on the different locations. I knew how Geyser worked from previous travels (Yellowstone and Iceland), but I needed to learn about the different floras and faunas. Needless to say that once in bed, I barely closed my eyes due to the stress, especially since I didn’t know if I had to do a Spanish tour or an English one. My Spanish may have being much better than on my first day in Mexico, but from there to being a full on guide of a region that is brand new for me, and with only 1h of jam-packed information was a big step.

I woke up at 3:30, just to be sure, at 4:30, Ingrid came to pick me up, and collect the eight tourists wanting to do the tour, and we drove through the night to reach the location. To my great relief, all but one of them spoke only Spanish, so I did most of the tour in English, only having to repeat in Spanish the information as a one on one conversation. We visited the geyser, where I got to explain where the water was from, the different towers of rock came from and the same for the different colors seen near the geyser. After a small breakfast on site, we went for the thermal pool, where we enjoyed a swim. Not having a bathing suit, I jumped in in my underwear, but got wet for the rest of the day. Following the warm water, we drove until we saw Vacunas, a wild type of Lama that lives above 3700m, where I got to pretend I was an expert (not literally). After a stop at the small village of Macachua where we ate Lama Meat, we stopped at a lagoon, where it was time to show my new knowledge on flamingos. Finally, we stopped next to some cactus where I gave my theories on what they were all about. Unfortunately, on the night before, we didn’t get enough time to talk about them, so I excused myself, told them I gave them information based on a very few knowledge seen the night before, educated guess and knowledge from other similar cactus I had seen before (the Saguaros).

The funeroles of Tatio Geyser

It turned out pretty good. The clients were happy, I gave quite a bit of information, in Spanish and English, and my boss who drove us all day, but didn’t know English and most of the information, was happy about my first day as a guide. I may have done weird things on this trip, but never would I have thought I would end up being a tour guide within only three days in a region I had never visited. This felt immensely odd, but satisfying.

Two days later, I got the opportunity to guide the Tatio Tour once more. Unfortunately, this time, it didn’t go to good. My knowledge may have being much better than my first time, and no one spoke Spanish, so language wasn’t an issue, but I did a huge mistake. When we stop to pick up our last clients, I forgot to double check if they were indeed they our clients. They were indeed a group of two, staying at the hotel written on the list, and the only two outside, so they climbed in the car and we left. Once we got to the entrance of the geyser, we realised they weren’t on the list; we had picked up the wrong people. As you can imagine, the two actual clients weren’t happy and game to get refund, and cancel their other tour with us. It made me feel terrible.

But this issue turns out not to be the only stressful moment of that day. In the afternoon, my boss came and with a worried look told that the front neighbour had called the carabineros snitching about the illegal Canadian worker. Apparently, the day before, I manager to get so much clients, that they barely sold anything. Mad, they called the police to get rid of the competition. As she was telling me this, one of the carabineros entered the office of our neighbour. My heart started pounding; what if they kick me out of the country, and I can’t come back. Since I wasn’t here for work, but just for touring, I never thought about asking for a working permit, but now getting dollars for my work, I wasn’t legal. For the next hour, my boss and I talked about what to do, and eventually, she told me she was going to ask them about my situation. I decided to tag along I hiding would bring more suspicions. We explained the situation to the officer, and without a care, he replied there was no problem. Relieved, we got back to the office. Sophia had just returned from her morning tour, so I explained to her what had just happened. After hearing my side of the story, she turned to Ingrid, our boss, and asked for more information. Now it turns out that I totally miss heard what Ingrid had told me. The neighbours had nothing to do with all this. She actually told me: “I just came back from the carabinaros to ask them if it was illegal for you to work for us, or if you need a special permission.” What a relief, no deportation!!

Despite all of the stress accumulated over the day, I managed to enjoy that day, since Sophia’s husband had organised a Chilean BBQ to celebrate his offer to the Pachamama (Mother Earth), to have the Earth permission to construct his house. We drank wine, beer, ate meat, more wine, more meat, more meat, more beer, wine and beer. A real fiesta!

Waking up the next morning proved to be slightly challenging. I took the bike, and biked back to work. I tried and tried to sale tours, but luck wasn’t on my side, only one guy came buy and bought a place for the Acroiris tour. But just as I was about to close, I saw an American looking for some information. I invited him inside and explained all the tour, and extra information on where to go in town. Being lost in town, not speaking Spanish, and not sure of the name of his hotel, I offered to help him. We first stopped at a bar and got a few drink with the obligatory meal that has to come with that drink. I turns out that in San Pablo de Atacama, it is illegal to drink at a bar if you don’t eat as well (what a tourist trap). But not only do you have to order food, but once finished, the bar tender cannot remove the plate from the table or the carabineros could think you’ve drank without eating and give you a ticket, so you are stuck with dirty plate on the table all night long. After our meal, I helped him find a cab, and helped him find the name of his hotel. This turned out great since after that, he started booking tours with us.

The next day didn’t start very well for vending as nothing came along for the quasi totality of the day. But late in the afternoon, I saw a guy that I’ve seen passing by for the last few days. Not to bother him again, I didn’t even try to have come inside; I just said a small “Hi”. He came to me and said: “OK, I’m finally ready to start visiting the region. Yes, after 5 days walking by, I’d like some information.” We booked the Piedras Rojas, Laguna Altiplanicas and Laguna de Chaxa tour, a full day tour. To that point, I hadn’t had the opportunity to tag along it, and with the conformation of the guy from the night before, I started thinking we might have a chance to actually do our tour. Sophia came back from her meeting late in the afternoon with two other clients, we were now four passengers, but we needed at least five for it to be worth it. I tried and tried getting that last client, and about 10min before closing time, a French couple passed by. I offered them information, and managed to have them tag along the tour for the next day. Finally, I will be able to visit those three new locations, and it sure was a good vending day. That night, Sophia and I went to one of her friend’s house, had a little cocktail, with a few snacks and went back home.

We woke up early, went looking for our clients, and once every one was in, we drove to our first location: the Tropic of Capricorn, the closest southern parallel to the Sun during the summer season, and the Inca Trail. After a little explication of what they were and what they represented, we went to the Lagunas Altiplanicas. Over there, amazing volcanoes surrounding a near freezing lake helping local wildlife survive awaited us. The yellowish Paja Brava (local plant eaten by the vicuña), contrasted the deep blue water and the pale brown and red volcanoes. This was the ultimate Altiplanico landscape. After visiting two of them, we kept on going south, reaching eventually Piedras Rojas. The scenery changed from majestic to out of the ordinary. From the col, we could see at least three different volcanoes. The first on still had a layer of dried magma lying on its top, whereas the other one, less conventional had part of its mountain side all white due to an eruption of borax, as for the third one, the prettiest, was fully colored, the typical pale brown from a rhyolite eruption was surrounded by iron red, a little bit of purple and darker brown. Standing above the salt flat of Talar, still filled with a milky turquoise, this volcano was a sight to be seen on its own. Finally, on the front shore of the Salar de Talar, a red lava flow had covered the area. We parked the car next to that old lava field, and went for a walk on it. The first few rock weren’t very reddish, but the closer we got to the salt flat, the redder they would become. Some of them were slightly concave, which had accumulated salt water a long time ago and as the water evaporated, it left behind a white salt picture of the profile of the concavity. These red and white rocks eating part of the flat gave great opportunity for picture taking, and I definitely took it. It was now time to head back toward San Pedro, but not without stopping for a great local meal and of course, the Laguna de Chaxa, situated in the center of the Atacama Salt Flat, a refuge for the flamingoes. We got there slightly later than we thought, but still on time to get the gorgeous sunset setting above the lagoon. We walked around, and learned about the life of these intriguing birds. Once the Sun down, we got back in the car and got back in town. This had being a tiring day, neither Sophie nor I stayed awake very long, especially since she had to wake up at 3:45am for the Geyser of Tatio tour the next day. As for me, there wasn’t enough room in the car for me to tag along, I guess I can snooze this morning.

Now dried, the lava rock turned red

At around 16 o’clock, I started gathering clients form my tour at Valle de la Luna. Unlike my last visit of this particular site, I was the guide. In my car were five French, one Japanese (who spoke little English), an Ecuadorian and a Brazilian (who spoke Spanish).

“Bonjour, mon nom est Eric Bertrand, et je serais votre guide pour la journée… Hi, my name is Eric Bertrand, and I’ll be your guide for this afternoon… Hola, me llamo Eric Bertrand, y soy vosotros guía por la tardé”, I said in the three languages I knew. For the next four hours, every time I would say something, I needed to repeat it in two other languages. We started off with a small stop at the Valley of the Dead, followed by the Coyote Butte, the Three Marias, the Amphitheater, and finally watched the sunset at the Major Dune. The tour went super well, but the one thing worth mentioning happened at the Three Marias. As I was repeating my speech in all sorts of languages, the two Spanish speaking women started laughing, and so did all the French one. Not too sure about what was happening, I ask what was funny, and the two girls answered me, in French, “We actually understand French.” What a relief, even if I do mistake in Spanish, they understand what I say from the previous speech. That being said, I decided to keep on explaining everything in Spanish to practice, but now, with them helping me perfect my Spanish.

My next tour took place the next day. It was a new one: Valle Arcoiris or Rainbow Valley. This tour was indeed amazing. We got to start with the Pyrography left on some ancient volcanic rock, followed by the visit of a small canyon, but the cherry on top of the Sunday was definitely the colored mountains of Arcoiris. I had seen this formation in Death Valley (California) before, but the scale of it wasn’t even close of this one. In the center of the valley was a huge red natural wall, with behind it an amazing blue and white butte. On the north side, a beautifully naturally carved cliff leads to incredible white dyke splitting the broken mountain in half, and on the south side, a dark green, red, white, pink, and blue mountain reminded us of the volcanic activity of the area. We walked along the valley for a little while in awe, not capable of stopping push the trigger of my camera.

The different tuff from old eruption were colored with the oxidization once exposed

We came back a little before 16 o’clock, as I had another tour in Valle de la Luna that I had to take care of, but this time, not having enough clients, we transferred them to another agency, Agencia Volcanoes. I walked with our clients over there and made the transfer, but just as I was heading back toward our agency to finish my day, one of the employees ran and grabbed my shirt. “You speak English, right? We need an English speaking guide for Cejar right now. Can you do it?” Of course, I could do it, this was the first tour I did in Atacama. I jumped in the car and took off with our fully Spanish guide. Just like the first time, we stopped for a swim in the salt lagoon, went cliff diving in another, and finally watched the sunset at the Tebinquiche Lagoon. When I got back to the agency, Roger, the American that had being doing a few tours with us was waiting for me to invite me offer for lunch. We hung out at a local restaurant for a little while, drank beer, and after helping him finding a ride to his hotel, I got back to Sophia’s house and went to bed; I was exhausted.

It was now the 25th of March, and I had two days left in Atacama. Unlike the other, these didn’t involve work. Sophie had organised my last two days with Santiago, a friend of hers, which also worked as a guide. Unlike every other agency, Santiago makes his tours at different time. For instance, rather than going to Tatio in the morning, he goes late in the evening. And so, Roger and I got to explore the geysers in the afternoon. Not only did we get the chance to visit the site tourist-free, but we got to explore in depth the Guatin canyon, and got a Chilean BBQ well roasted with a few bottles of wine. The geysers themselves weren’t as impressive as in the morning, but the other aspects of the road were much more fun. As for my last day, I finally got to see the Salar de Tara. We left in the morning, and climbed the 4800m pass necessary to reach the famous Monjes de Pacana. We stopped at the foot of its guardian, the most photographed of the many pillars in the area. Leaving the Monjes meant driving unto the off-road. We drove for about an hour in dirt and rocks to finally reach a field of white pillars, where we ate a few empanadas. To finish our exploration of this remote area, we drove along the Cathedral (a gorgeous cliff fully sculpted by millions of years of erosions, leaving behind towers of rock a pond towers of rock) until we reached the Salar de Tara. Surrounded by colored mountains and the Cathedrals, this lagoon contrasts the paleness of the desert with its deep green vegetation and it wildlife.

The Guadien, the top of this monolith looks like an idian looking left

I had spent 10 days working and touring the Atacama Desert and it was time for me to keep on moving. I had over 2’000km between Atacama and Santiago, and three weeks to reach it. Santiago was the only city nearby, and the most logical place to fly back to La Paz to meet my parents. Obviously, these 2’000km weren’t in a straight line, I still had lots to see, and for the first time of my trip, with a delay.

I took my time in the morning to pack my gears, and head for breakfast with Sophie. This breakfast turned out to be more of a lunch, pushing my hitchhiking for the afternoon. I raised my thumb at 2pm, but didn’t get a ride until 7pm. I guess Chile is definitely the hardest country I’ve hitched in. I left the country with an average of 76min of waiting. Hope for the country the south with help lower this horrible average.

The view was nice, but after 5h, it became less impressive

The driver who stopped was no less than a police officer. He was coming back from vacationing at the beach with his wife, and heading back toward Argentina. I guess getting a police officer to cross the border was more helpful than I thought. When I got to the Chile-Argentina border, I checked out of Chile, and when I got to check in Argentina, I got refused the entrance. I didn’t have a certain paper with me. It was 10pm, pitch dark, and I’m told to hitch back to Atacama to find internet so I can download this paper, and hitch back, so I can cross the border, definitely something I didn’t wanted to do, especially with the Chilean average waiting. Thankfully, my new cop friend had other plans for me, he wanted to show me his country, and started discussing about the different options possible. Finally, he managed to have the border accepting to give me one of their computers to fill the form and enter Argentina. It took us about 1h30min to get me through, but we did it. We drove for a while until we called it a day. Not having anywhere to stay for the night, we parked the car and slept in it. The next morning, we drove to the Salar Grande for sunrise, and kept on going toward Pumamarca, the city of seven colors. We explored the colored hills surrounding the town, and finally split at the intersection of route 9.

Overlook of Pumamarca

I hitched a ride to Humahuaca, where I got another ride from Dipi, a captain who lives in Ushuaia. Together, we drove to the Hornocal, most certainly the most beautiful valley I’ve ever seen. The multicolored stratus of the area got pushed up a few millions of years ago exposing an array of colors going from green, to pink, to red, to blue, yellow, white and back to red. All this stunningly eroded into many triangular shaped hills be-fronted by an amazingly curved hill with similar coloring. I had seen many similar formations throughout my trips, but none we to this scale and contrast. Dipi and I stayed baffled for 4h, just watching the colors change as the Sun lowered itself constantly giving new contrasts. When we finally dragged ourselves out of the park, we drove back to Pumamarca where we exchanged emails, for me to have a place to stay in Ushuaia for my coming visit. Argentina was off for a good start; rough entrance, but easy hitchhiking and friendly people.

Simply incredible

Having entering the country in the night meant I couldn’t change my money into Argentinean pesos. I was money less, and needed to find a bank. All I had were 100 pesos given by my cop friend. My goal was to stop in Salta and find an International Bank for withdraw, but I’ll I could find was the National Bank, and it didn’t accept my money. I guess this meant I was back on my initial budget, $1 a day; at least until I find something else.

Not having much to do in town, I started to head toward la Quebrada del Colorados, near Cafayete. I tried hitching out of town, but need 40min to get a first ride to the suburbs and an hour to exit the city, reaching the next town, where I got the luxury of waiting 2h10min. The city of Salta may have being horribly painful (timewise), but my next ride was exactly what I needed. I got a ride about a third of the way south, and after having visited the local lake, my driver invited me over for the night. This was perfect as I needed to relax and charge my electronics. Without them, I had no idea of where my next destinations were.

After showering and eating, I got a ride out of town. Without too much effort, I got in the Quebrada de las Conchas. This beautiful canyon was full of scenic lookout. I first stop at the Garganta del Diablo, followed by the Amphitheater, the colorful Yesera, and the Obelisco. As I was now heading toward Cafayete, I got picked up by a local artisan living in the canyon. When he heard my story, he offered me to stay over for the night at his place. He lived in the most picturesque house, in the middle of the colored mountain of the valley.

The rocks of Yesera

Like all of the last few days, before heading to bed, I looked at my progress. Having to reach Santiago by the 13th added a lot of stress, and when I looked at my map, I realised that from where I was to Santiago, there was no major airport. I knew I could reach the Chilean capital, but having a deadline prevented me from taking my time, and if anything were to happen, slowing me down, I was screwed. Then a thought came to my mind. What if I hitchhike back to La Paz; like this, if I’m short on time, I can just take one of the many night buses heading there. The mileage between Cafayete and La Paz wasn’t so impressive, giving me the opportunity to take my time and explore more regions.

The next day, I got on the road, and headed to the impossible to reach Quebrada de las Flechas. Getting rides was harder and harder as I got deeper and deeper on the remote road system of the region, but finally, two Israelis stopped by and picked me up to carry me through the Quebrada, to Cachi, and on the next day, back to Salta. Therefore, they weren’t going very far in town, and Salta was a long walk for me. Rather than tackling another city hike, I decided to ask around the gas station where they left me. The second car I talked to offered me to hop in as they lived on the other side of town, what a luck! From there, a girl pulled over and brought me to the start of a scenic road, and just like that, I found another ride through the mountains and the thick forest of the Salta Region. The couple with whom I was riding brought me back to Purmamarca, where two rides later, I got a ride all the way to the border, almost 550km from my starting point. After visiting the Cerro de los Ocho Hermanos, in Yavi, I started looking for a place to camp for the night. Not having much option, I through my tent on the local soccer field, but just as I was heading to sleep, the wind picked up. Not having any wind breaker protecting my tent, it collapsed on me. I fought my way out but with the wind blowing harder, I couldn’t pack anything. With little option left, I grabbed everything, and discreetly sneaked in and abandoned house on someone’s property. There might not be a roof to that house, but the walls did protect me from one of my most hated enemy: the wind.

It was harder to find than I thought, but here is Quebrada de la Huasteca

I slept quite well that night; no dogs were barking, no one came to bother me, with the wall’s protection, everything was peaceful, and the temperature was perfect. When the Sun’s first ray shined into my eyes, I packed my gear, and once more, sneaked out. It was time for me to enter Bolivia again.

Having much time on my hand before the arrival of my parents, I chose to use an alternative route. This route wasn’t going to be easy. To start with, being right next to the border emptied the roads from any traffic, just buses and taxis. It took me nearly 2h to make my first 25km. To make matter worst, the road heading to Tarija, my first destination, was either a 600km detour passing by Sucre, or cutting across a canyon on dirt road, and without traffic. Both option sounded bad, but as I was looking at my map, trying to figure out what to do, a couch bus pulled over and asked me if I wanted to hop in. I excused myself, saying I was hitchhiking and had no money, but they signaled me to hop in anyhow. Without even trying, I had found a ride across this canyon. This being said, zigzagging through this one line two way traffic dirty road bordered by huge cliffs wasn’t has relaxing as it seemed. Obviously, the couch bus stopped in the city’s center, and once more, I had to cross the city by foot. I tried stopping at a first gas station and asked around, but no luck. I kept trying for a few minutes, and finally, someone helped me out by stopping a taxi for me. It took a few more cars to fully see Tarija behind me.

I drove the back of a pickup truck for a few hours until it turned on a dirt road, leaving me hours and hours from any town. We had being driving two hours without seeing a single city, and it took me another three to see the next one; in other word, I was in the middle of nowhere. A bit scared by the low Sun, I kept hitchhiking hoping to find something before night fall. It took me 5min for a truck to stop. I got in the “cage” at the back, and off we went. For the first part of the trip, I stood up and watch the scenery pass by. Huge colored cliff stood out of the luxurious forest of the canyon, but eventually, light fully faded leaving without much to do. Tired, I want into one of the corner of the box, formed a little ball and fell asleep. A few hours later, a near thunderstorm woke me up. I got back up on my feet and looked out to see if it was on the way. To my disappointment, it was directly ahead. I stayed up to keep track of the storm, but the wind eventually pushed the clouds south, and so, before we got there. Reassured, I laid on the flatbed of the truck and once more fell asleep. The truck went left and right through the canyon up until we reached Villamontes. The sudden stop woke me up, and when the box got open, I knew we were at destination. It was 2 in the morning, and I was dead tired, I walked toward the bridge to find shelter, but oddly enough, I got intercepted by a local guy smoking a cigar. “Where are you going like this at this time?” he asked me. “I just got in town, and don’t have a place for the night, so I thought maybe the bridge could come in handy” I replied. “Well if you want, I live right here. You can just through your tent”. I looked at the sky to make sure the storm cloud was far away, and seeing nothing but stars, I accepted.

The next morning, I took my time. Woke up late, had breakfast with my host and his two kids did a little bit of planning, and got on the road. I quickly realised I wasn’t back on an easy road just yet. Still very close to the border, but this time far from civilisation, meant traffic was even sparser then before. Furthermore, hitchhiking wasn’t a known concept in the region; no one understood why was I giving them a thumb’s up on the side of the road. Finally, everyone were local farmers, so no long distance rides. All I would get would be an hour wait to hitch to the next farm. Adding the humidity, and powerful Sun burning my skin and all hope was lost. This was to be hell, and it was. It took me a blazing hot 1h25min before I got a decent ride. Thankfully, went I asked the typical “¿Dondé vas?”, I got the response I wanted to hear: “Santa Cruz”. Wow, I was finally out of this hell road, and heading toward an actually city, where hitchhiking was a little more known. We drove for about six hours, and impressed by my trip, one of the guys took me under his wing. Halfway through the trip, he offered me food, and once in Santa Cruz, he paid a hotel room, before leaving at the end of town, the next morning.

I took me just over a day to reach Trinidad. This road may not have being in my original plan and may not be known by many tourist, but It was a beautiful road to hitch on. The hitchhiking turned out to be much easier than I thought since there is a very low traffic. But this low traffic is compensated by many trucks bringing food to and from Trinidad to Santa Cruz, which made my mode of transportation much easier. But other than the rides, this road had a surprise for me. The region north-east of the Andes turns out to be extremely flat. With the humidity of the Amazon blocked by the high peak of the sierra, an incredibly divers ecosystem inhabits the swampy region. Going from the huge jabiru to the small kingfisher, the stealth eagle to the colorful toucan, I stayed baffled at the wide range of birds flying the area. Despite creating an amazing show, the birds weren’t the highlight of my passage through these swamps. As I was riding through the dirt road, just west of Trinidad, the taxi I was getting a ride from suddenly dodged something. Sitting in the back seat, I wasn’t looking in front but by the side window, and there passed a huge wombat crossing trying to cross the street. Not expecting this animal to show up, I stayed stunned, and forgot to ask the driver to stop for a picture; I missed a hell of an opportunity, but at least, I got to see it and from up close. I eventually got to see another, but this one was much farther and half hidden by the herbs surrounding a small pond.

The roseate spoonbill

Trinidad was the end of the asphalted road, and the beginning of an adventure. So far, I’ve always hitched on decent roads. I’ve done a few dirt roads, and nowhere, but never have I felt as far out as going from Trinidad to Yucumo. The road started strong as right of the bat, it was blocked by a section of the Amazon River. I paid de five pesos to get aboard and as I was crossing, I managed win a motorcycle ride to another river blocking the road. Not having much money left with me, I needed to find another way across this obstacle. I saw a man heading for its car. I thought it would be the perfect way across, the ferry charges for the car, not for the people in the car. So, I asked the guy if he was heading to the other side of the river. As I explained my regular mumbo jumbo, he told me he was one of the ferries captain, and told me he would gladly get me across for free. I must say, I didn’t expect to do much hitchboating when I first entered Bolivia, but hitchhiking always has a few surprises up its sleeves. Now on the other shore, I needed to find a car to the next town, hours away. This wasn’t so easy since the traffic could only come from the ferry. I found a small shady spot on the road and sat there waiting for the next ferry to bring me a few cars. At first, I didn’t wanted to listen to my music, I was more interested into listening to the sound of nature, and all the birds signing along, but reality quickly came to brake this perfect moment by sending me mosquito by the millions. Being surrounded by swamp meant perfect climate for these devilish creatures. What I thought was going to be a lovely one-on-one with Mother Nature, turned out to be a half-hour fight slapping and hitching myself, while constantly hearing their annoying buzzing sound. Needless to say, when I finally got a car to stop over, I jumped in thankful this hell was over.

Taking a go at hitch-ferrying

I little down the road, I got picked up by three guys going hunting and fishing for the weekend. As we were driving, they asked me how I was making sure to stay clean if I didn’t have money for showers or for hotel, and when I told them about my usual wait between two washes, they almost instantly stopped over at a small river for me to shower. They had soap and shampoo, so I got into my boxers and jumped into the reddish water between a swamp and a river. I wasn’t too sure about how clean the water was, but all throughout my trip, I had seen local people shower in river, so I stopped thinking like a North American, and assumed it was clean water. I didn’t get anything bad out of this water, but as I was waiting for my next car, I did feel itchier than normal. As usual, my luck got me an invitation to camp on someone’s property for the night, and I got to shower with clean water this time.

Not sure if I came out cleaner or dirtier?

In the morning, I walked out of town to picture the different birds around town, and ended up at a toll booth for the road. I waited there for a car to stop by, but this toll wasn’t very frequented. As I was sitting in the shade waiting for a car to pass by, the police officer responsible of the morning shift came by. He asked me who I was and why I was chilling around the toll, with the other employees. I explained my story, but unlike usual, he seemed a bit annoyed by my mode of transportation. I guess this turned out nice since at the very first truck that passed by, he forced me in, trying to get rid of me. I rode for the totality of the morning, slept through most of it, and finally got to Yucumo. I crossed town, rised my finger, and waited, waited and waited. There was some sort of road block on the bridge, but some cars were still passing by. That being said, they all signalled me they weren’t going far. Intrigued, I walked toward the guy responsible of the road block and asked what was happening. The road was closed for the day, and was only reopening at 5pm, it was noon. Not able to keep on moving, I got down, got into my underwear, and went for a swim; this time the water looked clean. I lay in the water for a while, and eventually four guys came to join me. We enjoyed the swim, letting ourselves drift away with the current, and as 5pm came to be, my four new friends invited me to tag along for the ride. Obviously, having a five hour delay meant we weren’t going to stop for the night. So, as night fell, we all found a place between the rice bags and tried to sleep. This turned out to be a very uncomfortable ride as the altitude meant the night was going to be cold, the rice bags weren’t all leveled, and the truck was twisting and turning through the mountains, waking us up at every pothole. I woke up the next day with a huge pain throughout my entire body; the extended bad posture mixed with the shacking definitely wasn’t good.

Who said hitchhiking was about comfort

When I finally got out of this truck, I cross town I started hitching toward La Paz. I waited for about 30min when a couple from Cochabamba stopped. I got in the back of their pickup, and we left toward the metropole. As we approached a first turn, I noticed the driver was cutting his turn a little too much on the left lane. There was no way for him to see any upcoming cars. I was a bit scared; usually, I fully trust my drivers, but this time, I most certainly didn’t. But even weirder was that after the turn, he didn’t even got back into his lane, he kept on driving on the left lane. It took me some time before I saw the first upcoming car, but this car was on the right lane. It seemed like on the road between Caranavi and Coroico, people drove like in England, but with the wrong cars. Quite a while later, as we stopped to eat, I asked about the driving and the road separating the two towns used to be called El Camino de la Muerte (the death road). This one lane road used to be so dangerous due to the cliffs on its side that the drivers preferred driving on the opposite side. This gave them the opportunity to gage with more precision where their wheel was with regards to the cliffs. Now the road has being improved in some area, but the habit stayed.

When we finally got back to La Paz, the weather started to change. The beautiful blue sky that from the last month had unfortunately turned into rain, and to make matters worse, I was in the back of a pickup. The rain rapidly turned into hail, but after a good 15min, turned back into rain. I was finally dropped off at the airport, soaking wet.

_____________________________

Country's Statistics

Statistics for Chile and Argentina will be shown in a following chapter

PHOTOS