Entrance into Bolivia - the border

We really had just a very little idea of what the Bolivian experience would be when we signed up for the tour. The minibus that took us to the border was a Mercedes and it was new. So I thought the booking/touring companies must have some dough, so the vehicles on the other side of the border ought to be pretty new, right? Wrong. There was a fair amount of people in the Minibus with us and all of them would be on tours, so we had to wait a while for all of the people to go through the border patrol, so I took pictures while we waited.

Sita next to the Mercedes minibus in front of the Bolivian border station. This station had one wall (in the left of the picture) that was dilapidated that showed the evidence that this building is made out of adobe as well. I was surprised that the Bolivian government would allow for such a ramshackle building to be the first thing that greets many tourists from all over the world. I was especially surprised later when we encountered other more well-built government facilities.

The view was already amazing forget the infrastructure, or lack there of, this giant mutli-colored snow-capped mountain was right in front of us.
Sita needed to go to the bathroom so we asked if they could oblige us in the border station, but they said they did not have a bathroom. So we thought, how can that be, especially since there are no trees or bushes to duck behind. "Hey, I have an idea let's check out that skeleton of a bus a over there."

Looks like we weren't the only ones with this idea.There were some other adobe ruins and apparently a dwelling also at the border. This dwelling was even more ramshackle then the border station, I think this is where the Bolivian officers working there lived.

The fleet of Toyota Land Cruisers ready to take the new wave of tourists. Everybody talks about "Jeep" tours in Bolivia, but you will never find anything but Toyota Land Cruises being utilized in this terrain, this is a testament to the quality of Toyota vehicles. Especially since some of the Land Cruisers were of the late 70's/early 80's variety. We were lucky enough to score a mid-90's model (for the first few days of the tour) that was still in pretty good shape in the interior especially since a properly functioning or clean interior is certainly not a priority for the touring companies or drivers.




I was surprised to find snow in the shade of this adobe wall. After the heat experienced in San Pedro, I thought I would be appropriately dressed for most of the tour in the clothes I'm seen in here. Boy was I wrong...