May 5 - Welcome to Bolivia - 350km

Hello, Bolivia.

Bolivia was always supposed to be the hard part.

Border officials asking for bribes.  Rough roads.  No services.  No road signs.  No bathrooms.

But so far, day one in Bolivia was spectacularly uneventful.  The border crossing was a smooth 45 minute exercise in making copies and getting rubber stamps.  It it wasn´t for a bus of tourists, it might´ve been the fastest checkpoint yet.  And other than a few jokes about ¨yankees¨and something about Osama Bin Laden being caught, it was totally straight edge.

In reality, the border doesn´t have much historical significance.  Rural Bolivia looks identical to rural Peru.  The local Quechua and Aymara people lived in communities that defied the lines that the Spanish drew on a map.

The road from Lake Titicaca to La Paz weaved through some ridges before coasting along a high plain to La Paz.  It felt like it had been paved recently and was in great shape.  There is even less traffic than in Peru... until you get to the outskirts of La Paz, when it gets pretty crazy.

And the day after tomorrow, it´ll be time for the World´s Most Dangerous Road.

Locals waiting for the bus - they might have walked for miles to get to the main road.

Adobe houses in a huge landscape.

I couldn´t help taking picture after picture.