Going to Bolivia

Despite the rain and the mud puddles in the morning we did not get stuck.

We decided not to head to the geysers of tatia and headed toward the Bolivian border.

The kids played outside and it was 51 F.

We drove all the way to Calama and filled up water and dumped out cassette and filled up the gas tank with the 5 gallon tank we filled yesterday. We wouldn't be needing this after talking to the German in the Defender yesterday.

I spoke with a guy working at a water filtering factory and he says it rains once in 8 years in Calama but they get their water from the river which happened to be flooding due to the rains this week. In fact the road to the border had been closed due to mudslides.

We bought some gas station hot dogs which were terrible but the kids loved them.

The road to the border was gorgeous and we were surrounded by volcanos. We came across a salt pan and there were flamingos and vicunas feeding. We stopped to watch them. 

We made it to the border right before they closed. We checked out of Chile and drove to the Bolivian border and the asphalt disappeared.

Americans need to buy Bolivian visas for $160 each. We had printed out the necessary paperwork and had photos and typed up an itinerary and made a hotel booking (and then cancelled it). We didn't have yellow fever vaccinations but we were not from a country with yellow fever. The immigration man seemed to have a difficult time with this but said he would help us out. But I showed him that going to Uyuni and Tupiza did not require yellow fever vaccinations. We paid our money and then it took almost an hour to get our TIP. There was confusion on whether a chassis number was the same as a VIN but I showed them that according to google it was and further more the Ram chassis only has vin in two spots. They didn't bother to check the number in the end anyways. 

We finished at the border when they were closing. It was almost dark and we parked next to a building at the border for the night. It was cold out but about the same as last night. It turns out getting to a border near closing time was actually pretty good. No lines.