To tell the whole story, let’s start from the
beginning. We entered Peru in May and
travelled south for about a month, enjoying ourselves and hitting the major
attractions like Machu Picchu and Nazca (see our previous posts to read about those).
We then spent two and a half months in Arequipa, a city in southern
Peru, teaching English. We knew
perfectly well that we were overstaying our visa (tourists are given 90 days),
but everyone we had talked to, and we do talk to a lot of tourists, told us
that overstaying the visa is really no problem – all you have to do is pay a
fine of $1 per day that you’ve overstayed when you leave. For us, that made more sense than making a
trip to the border and back to renew the visa – we would spend more in gas driving
there than we would pay in fines in a couple weeks when we planned to cross.
When we left Arequipa, we took a trip to Colca
Canyon, and then headed towards the city of Puno, on Lake Titicaca, which was gorgeous. This was to be our last stop in Peru.
After a couple days in Puno we drove to the
southern end of Lake Titicaca, where we planned to cross into Bolivia and go to
Copacabana. We arrived at the border
early in the morning. Everything went
just as expected – we paid the $1 a day fine and had our passports stamped out
of Peru. We drove up to the gate that
was separating us from Bolivia. They
almost opened it for us, until one woman who was standing there said, “Oh,
wait, I need your vehicle permit.”
Dammit. We
were so close. Now she’s going to look
at our permit, notice that it is expired, and then we’ll have to pay another
fine, we thought. We got out our
paperwork, followed her into the aduana office, and handed over the expired
permit. She looked at it for a while,
talking to us happily about our trip, but when she noticed the date, she
frowned.
We made up a whole story about me being sick and
unable to travel, and mistakenly calling migraciones instead of aduana (as
stupid tourists, we don’t know the difference, wink wink), who told us that all
we would have to do is pay a fine. The
aduana woman and her coworker both pointed out the fine print on the vehicle
permit form that we had signed, stating that overstaying the vehicle permit
would result in Peru taking possession
of the vehicle.
A little extreme, you say? Well who knew that in Peru they are such
sticklers for the rules. The two aduana
officers seemed to have no pity on innocent tourists. After much argument, we were getting
nowhere. They had to take our
vehicle.
“There has to be another solution…” we say, still
expecting that maybe they would just ask us for a some cash, look the other
way and raise that one little gate standing in our way to Bolivia.
Didn’t work.
In the end, we sat there as the hours passed by and the aduana woman
made numerous calls to the higher-ups as to what to do in this situation. She passed the phone to Ricardo, and he
talked to the Puno aduana office directly, but they repeated the same story about the law and fine print, blah blah.
We were squirming in our seats and thinking, this could be the end of our trip. At one point, they told us that there were
“officials” coming to “inspect” the vehicle, though they never showed up. Many things passed through our minds. We could turn around and try to get through
at another border…but these guys still have our documents and we’d surely have
the same problem at another border, or even more without documentation. OR…The gate was left mostly unattended…we
could open it up ourselves and make a break for it, would they chase us into
Bolivia? But that scenario seemed
unlikely to have a happy ending.
In the end,
we waited there all day long, feeling like hostages. It is hard to believe that there is no
“contingency plan” for situations like this, or that we’re the first people
ever to overstay a vehicle permit in Peru…but at least they hadn’t taken our
car…yet. Finally, around 5pm, (yes, we
had been there since 8am) the aduana woman told us that we had two options: 1)
they take possession of the car there, immediately, with no possibility of
getting it back, or 2) we drive to Puno and try to explain our situation to the head of aduana in the
office there, with no indication that he would be able to do anything
differently.
We obviously chose option 2, hoping that we were
not driving all the way back to Puno just to have them take the car there. We had our exit stamps in our passports
annulled and drove back that night, and went to the aduana office in the
morning, hoping not to have to wait another entire day. It ended up being just a couple hours (which
normally would be frustrating, but after waiting all day yesterday, seemed like
nothing). We were led back to the office
of the head honcho at aduana in Puno.
Head Honcho Guy was already knew about our
situation, after being in on the phone calls yesterday. He gave us an intense look and said,
“Legally, there is
nothing I can do but take your car.”
F$#@!!!
So this @$%^# has us drive all the way here just to tell us this?
(after a giant and
dramatic pause) “However,”
Phew.
“If you were to cross
the border at a place with no aduana control, we would know nothing about it
and I have never seen you in this office.”
We must have looked dumbfounded – the guy didn’t
even ask for any money, as we were expecting…but how were we supposed to find
and drive WITH THE TRAILER to some remote border crossing with no aduana?
Head Honcho Guy sighed and proceeded to literally DRAW
US A MAP (stupid gringos) of how to get to the only border crossing with no
aduana control – we would have to first get our passports re-stamped out in
Puno, inventing a story about why we needed to be stamped out there instead of
at the border, and then drive around Lake Titicaca, this time to the north,
dirt roads of course, and cross the border at a remote village there.
“Oh, and by the way,
try to lay low.
There is a nationwide alert out for your vehicle, so if you get stopped
by the police, they will take it. Get
out of Peru as soon as you can. And, since you are leaving illegally, your car
will never be allowed back in.”
Honestly, we didn't expect such kindness from Aduana, but this guy was really nice to us and tried as hard as he could to help us out of Peru. And that was it – so began our escape. We donned dark sunglasses and mustaches (just
kidding) and went about town taking care of the passports first, because
without a legal exit stamp from Peru, they wouldn’t stamp us in to
Bolivia. After visiting a couple offices
and paying a $2 fine at the bank, they let us stamp out in Puno without much
fuss.
 |
| Puno immigration office |
Then it was time to get out of Dodge! We hit the road, being extra careful to “lay
low” by following the speed limit and not committing any traffic infractions
that would cause the police to stop us.
The suspects:
The accomplice:
 |
| "I was framed!" |
We drove the route indicated on Head Honcho Guy’s
map. At first, the roads were paved and
easy driving.
 |
| Goodbye (again) Puno! |
We had some great views of the lake, but we didn’t
waste time stopping. These are some
pictures taken from the car:
We went some tight roads in small towns.
As we got farther around the lake, the roads
turned to rough dirt and gravel. After a while, they got really bad.
In the evening, we arrived at the border town
where we were to cross into Bolivia.
At the border, there was a gate across the road,
and a small police building, with one guard inside – our final obstacle to
entering Bolivia.
The guard asked to see our passports (good thing
we had them stamped out in Puno), then asked about our vehicle paperwork. Umm… “Don’t worry, we took care of that in
Puno as well,” Ricardo told him.
He smiled and said “Have a good trip,” as he
lifted the gate. We waved at him as we
drove past… SUCCESS! We had made it into
Bolivia – at last.
Across the border, we felt safe that at least we
wouldn’t have our car taken from us, but we still had the bad roads to contend
with. On the Bolivia side, the roads
seemed even worse. Lots of holes, and
even a small river crossing.
We were already a few miles in when we came to
this:
There was no one around, just a big old wire stretched
across the road, and locked with a padlock.
What ??? They HAD to let us
through, because we couldn’t go back to Peru!
We waited for a little bit, yelling “hello?” but
no one came. So left the car parked in
front of the block and walked to a nearby house with chickens, dogs, and sheep
wandering about in the front. After
yelling for someone there, a woman came out and told us that to continue, we
would have to pay a toll. There was
another woman who had the key, and we would have to find her to let us
through. Where do we find this
gatekeeper?, we asked. The woman pointed
back in the direction we had come from.
So we went back to the road and began walking back
toward Peru. We hadn’t gotten very far
when we came across another woman walking along the road, full indigenous
dress, and followed by a bunch of chickens.
She pulled a key out of her pocket – ah, the elusive gatekeeper. Walking back to the car, she told us that she
had been working in the field when she saw us drive up, and was coming to meet
us. It had just taken her that long to
walk there! What a system.
She talked to us for a bit and then informed us
that we would have to pay the toll to get across. No, it’s not because they maintain the roads,
or that this toll is authorized by the state.
This woman and her neighbors just decided that they would stretch a wire
across the road and charge vehicles for passing. Ok… so we paid the “toll” (thankfully it was
only 5 Soles, less than $2, we didn’t have any Bolivianos yet). She opened up the wire and we drove on
through. Welcome to Bolivia – I guess
this is how things work here!
We continued driving and it was dark already by
the time we got to the official border town of Puerto Acosta. The immigration office was closed for the
day, so we parked outside and slept there that night.
In the morning, we went to get our passports
stamped into Bolivia, but apparently in this town, they don’t get many foreign
tourists… they told us that they couldn’t stamp our passports there, and gave
us a citation to go to the immigration office in La Paz within 24 hours.
We also discovered that morning that we had broken
the trailer axle with the bad roads we had driven… so we found the only welder
in town and had him work on it. It took
the better part of the day but late that afternoon we were able to depart, on
our way to La Paz.
 |
| Poor Cubby suffered on this ride. |
So
that’s the story. In the end, we saw more of Lake Titicaca than
we ever thought we would, by driving almost the whole way around it. We
didn’t get to go to the touristy places, like Copacabana and the islands, like
we had planned, but we saw the “other side” that tourists don’t usually
see. We had to get to La Paz faster than
we had wanted to (no, we didn’t make it in 24 hours, but it turned out to be ok
because it happened to be a Friday and the office was closed for the weekend
anyway), but at least we made it out of Peru with our vehicle and our home,
able to continue our trip. But it was
one close call, one grand adventure, and most importantly, lesson learned:
When
in Peru, don’t overstay your vehicle permit!!!
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