I was forced to flee.

While spending time in La Paz at an extremely nice hotel that the Embassy graciously funneled funds to me to pay for, I was trying to deal with Bolivian Immigration; they were, as usual, giving me problems. Initially when I was in Guyaramerìn, they told me that I would simply have fifteen days to exit the country as soon as I got out of the hospital. This sounded like a fair deal, and I was more than prepared to accept it.

Once I arrived to La Paz, they began spontaneously changing their minds. The first time I went to their lair nestled between Social Services and the post office on Avenida Camacha, they told me I would have to leave through Chile within two days. When I went again the next day, they told me that my Embassy was organizing a flight back to the U.S.A. for me, which was obviously a work of pure fabrication since I was communicating intimately with my Embassy at the time.

I went back to the Consualte and relayed Immigration’s amorphous future plans for me; they agreed that the Bolivians weren’t making any sense at all. They asked to see my Passport, and I obliged. After making copies of all the pages with visas on them, they noticed that I didn’t posses the exit Visa for my most recent entry into Chile. I told them that initially, my plan was not to be caught without a visa in Bolivia, and to sneak quietly back into Chile a few days before my old Chilean visa actually expired. That way, it would be like I never left Chile, according to my Passport, and I would be able to leave the country through Perù and be completely legitimate again.

The fact that I didn’t posses an exit visa was quite problematic, according to the Embassy. This meant that not only was I illegal in Bolivia, but I was illegal in Chile as well! They told me that once the Bolivians eventually let me out of the country and back into Chile, (my only possible route of exit since that’s how I came into the country), once the Chileans saw that I didn’t get the exit stamp from their country I would be immediately deported back to Bolivia, whom would have just gotten through deporting me minutes before.

To put it simply, I would be deported into Chile from Bolivia, and then promptly be deported back into Bolivia as soon as I arrived. That’s two deportations from two different countries in the same day! This must be some kind of illegal immigrant record.

So what happens when I get deported back to Bolivia, you may ask. I’m not allowed there anymore, remember. The Embassy said I would have to be deported once again all the way back…to the United States of America.

Uh-oh.

Things were starting to look pretty dire for the adventure. Of course, if I got deported than I would promptly hitchhike back to South America, but then I would almost certainly miss my two-month window of opportunity to get to the South Pole (January and February). It would be so damn inconvenient, being deported all the way back to the Northern Hemisphere.

I couldn’t let that happen. If they were going to deport me back to the States, it was going to have to be whilst I was unconscious, in handcuffs, and with a couple of taser wires sticking out of my back.

I was lucky; my old Chilean visa still had four days left on it. I thought about it; if I could sneak back into Chile and pass into Perù in less than four days, than all my problems would go away! Well, they would at least stay in Bolivia. Here’s why:

I could wait and see if the Bolivians got their act together and gave me an exit pass within the next few days, but they had proved far too unreliable in the past. If they let me out before my Chilean visa expired, I would still have to sneak past the Chile checkpoint, since I had no exit visa, and would be sent back to Bolivia as soon as I got there.

I couldn’t afford to wait on the Bolivians just so I could maybe have one less checkpoint to sneak past; if they didn’t come through in time, I was fried for sure, because my old Chilean visa would expire. Then, even if I did manage to make it into Chile without being caught, I would be nabbed with an expired visa when I tried to cross into Perù.

I was going to have to risk it; being arrested and forcefully deported back to my home country by jumping the most heavily trafficked Bolivia-Chile border crossing; La Paz to Arica. All other crossings were too far away and it would be cutting the four days I had to get into Perù far too close.

This day had to succeed; if I was caught, everything would be over. Not only would I be deported, but there would most likely be some sort of passport restriction placed upon me, some thing I need like I need cerebral malaria. Additionally, Chile has a very strict visa policy; if I was caught slinking around the border and my scheme found out, I would be banned from Chile for life. Chile is currently the only way I can get to Tierra del Fuego without going through Bolivia (already banned for life) or Brazil (outrageous Visa charges). Therefore, my Antarctica attempt would almost definitely not happen. I needed to keep my wits about me and the border checkpoints as far away on the horizon as possible. I needed to disappear into the altiplano, to be the invisible man on the mountain. Everything rode on the outcome of this day.

As soon as I got the news that I would probably be deported back to the States, I made the decision to go for it. This was at about three in the afternoon. I had a little money on me (since my parents sent me my Christmas money early so as I could buy new gear while I was in the cheapest country in South America), so I decided to go and buy only the absolutely necessary things that I needed and to then buy a bus ticket to the small town where the Bolivian border checkpoint was located.

You’re probably wondering why I wanted to take the bus, since I hate buses; it’s because time was of the essence. Hitching out of La Paz could take five minutes or it could take two days. Since the next day was so important, I couldn’t risk the uncertainty; I needed to utilize all means possible to succeed, even if it meant violating my bus-taking rule, or for that matter any other rule I’ve imposed upon myself.

First, my things. I had US$91. I deemed the absolutely necessary things to be:

1. Sleeping bag
2. Hammock
3. Boots

I figured that these things would more or less exhaust my cash fund and leave me with enough for the bus ticket. With this in mind, I headed for Plaza San Fransisco, where street vendors sell you anything you could possibly want, or dream of maybe wanting one day. The selection was even more varied and exciting than in Mexico City.

Cheap, cheap cheap  cheap. I purchased my ‘absolutely necessary’ items and still had lots to spare. I also got my secondary items, which were:

1. Harmonicas
2. Coat or jacket
3. Hat
4. Fanny pack (shut up, they are damned useful)

I even got some luxuries:

1. Socks
2. New toothbrush
3. Chapstick
4. Gloves

Afterwards, I had enough to pay for my bus ticket. I headed to the station and paid my fifty Bolivianos to the town of M- and then tried to decided what I wanted to do for the rest of the night, since the earliest bus did not depart until six the following morning.

I decided to head back to Plaza San Fransisco and busk a bit with my new harmonica. I did so and with the ten Bolivianos I made I used the Internet for what I hoped was not the last time in South America.

I encountered a Facebook message from my British friend Laura (whom I mentioned before; she was the girl from San Pedro de Atacama before I hopped into Bolivia and started this whole mess) which said she was in La Paz now, at Plaza San Fransisco! Could I maybe meet her there at eight?

I looked at the clock. 8:01. Perfect!

So I left and met Laura once again in front of a massive cathedral. We went and had a spot of dinner, and she asked where I was to stay for the night. I told her my plans were to stay at the bus station for the evening.

Since we were rather drunk we concocted a silly plan for me to sneak into her hostal and covert camp the floorspace. After our meal we headed there, a place named Cactus a few blocks away.

When we arrived inside, the owner, of course, immediately said that I couldn’t go up; using our cunning skills as drunk people with a sneaky plan, we convinced him to let me have a few minutes. As soon as I got up I stashed all of my gear under one of the other beds, rolled out my new sleeping bag under Laura’s bed, and promptly went to sleep. Laura went out for a moment to buy some milk or something, and she told the owner I had left with her. When he went up the check (just in case) about an hour later, I was tightly concealed under the bed space. He bought our fun little trick, and I went to sleep in peace.

I awoke to the sound of Laura’s watch alarm at 0430; time to get out of here and head for the bus station. I packed my gear up as quietly and as quickly as possible and slipped out of the hostal onto the dark, early morning streets of La Paz.

I was about two blocks from the hostal when I heard a voice behind me, calling, ‘Hey! Hey you! Come back here!’ Curses, the owner was after me! I must have woken him up when I went out the door! I tried to feign ignorance and said that I didn’t know what he was talking about; I’d been sleeping on the street! He wouldn’t belive it. I even tried to escape in a taxi, but he was pretty strong and forcefully pulled me out of the cab. I didn’t know what the big deal was; I had slept for three and a half hours under a bed in an extremely cramped space;  he really wanted to charge me for a full night for that? He was extremely angry and threatened to call the police on Laura for breaking hostal rules, so I agreed to go with him back to the place, since she hadn’t done anything, really, and I had gotten her into this sticky wibbet in the first place.

I ended up paying him my last dollar; he agreed not to charge Laura anything, though she later told me he gouged her for a fiver later that day. Next time we meet I’ll have to buy the drinks. I suppose that’s what we get for being foolish drunks in the night. This also confirms my mindset that owners of hostals where tourists frequent are usually not the nicest or most forgiving of folks when it comes to poor wanderers like me; they assume I have money to pay, but just don’t want to, instead of the reality that if I could pay I would, but I can’t. Next time I’ll just stay in the bus station, I suppose.

This whole ordeal with the hostal had taken up a bit of time, and when I arrived to the bus station I found that I had missed my six a.m. bus! The woman behind the counter said I would have to wait for the next one, which didn’t depart until noon.

I decided to try and hitch onto something headed in that direction while I was waiting; if I didn’t find anything I would just take the noon bus, though this meant I would lose half of my day, and I only had this one and two more.

Lady Luck smiled upon me; a semi pulled over, and he was on his way to Arica, Chile, and would be passing through exactly where I wanted to go. Excellent!

After riding for several hours, we arrived to the town of M-. I hopped out of the truck as soon as we got to the tiny speck of civilization out in the middle of the altiplano; quickly, I began the evasion plan.

Here was the situation: The town of M- was bordered by rolling hills that evolved into towering, snow-capped mountains to the north; to the south was flat, lama-studded altiplano. To the west there was about thirty kilometers of ‘dead-zone,’ where no matter what direction you took on the road you would have to pass through either Bolivian or Chilean border control. Once you passed the official border to Chile there was a large lake on which the Chilean border checkpoint was located, about six kilometers past the actual border.

My plan was as follows: in order to skirt the Bolivians, I would need to head north into the mountains, since I would be easily spotted on the flat southern plain. I calculated that a roughly eight kilometer walk would be needed to a) get far enough from the border checkpoint so as there would be no possible way I would be spotted, and b) get back to the road once I was safely past to hitch onto one of the numerous semis closer to Chile.

Once I arrived into Chile, I would need to skirt around the lake, thereby evading the Chilean checkpoint and arriving safely back into Chile, whereupon I would have two days to get to Arica and then to Perù. This would mean another eight  or nine kilometer walk, as the lake was quite large.

I headed quickly out to the north, M- fading quickly into the rolling hills of the altiplano. I walked for several hours until the town’s radio tower was but a stick on the horizon and I had arrived to the foot of the jagged mountains. Here I encountered a dry streambed, which I followed west for roughly two hours. It wound randomly about and brought me to a nearly vertical rock face, which went straight up and didn’t level off until it was snowy.

At this time it seemed that I was far enough west that I had passed the Bolivian control, so I began climbing the hills back south so as I could arrive to the road and hitch onto a passing semi to the Chilean border. After nearly an hour and a half of trudging up and down the steep, bunchgrass studded hillsides with my heavy pack, I arrived at last to the road. I had come out about two kilometres west of the town of M-, but I could still see too many details and I couldn’t risk someone looking down the way with a pair of binoculars and seeing me; I went back into the hills and walked until I could see the town no more.

When I came back out onto the road, the next semi that passed picked me up and took me to the official border of Chile; the checkpoint was still about six kilometers ahead. I wanted to ride a little bit closer, but then I noticed something alarming; there were police cars ahead checking what I assumed were passports and documentation!

Spooked, I told the driver to stop and I booked it back into the hillsides before the police could see me. I continued walking west, with the road about 500 metres to the south. All I needed to do was pass the police; however, when I was peeking over a hilltop to check on the situation, I noticed the cars leaving and heading back to Chile. Phewph! I started back towards the road.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a large, armored truck came roaring towards me. It screeched to a halt, kicking dust up everywhere as the tires tore into the dry, sandy soil. Out came four or five men with assault rifles and body armor. At this point I figured I was toast; either I was about to be shot or I was about to be deported; neither of these things sounded appealing to me, but, fuck all, they had some scary-looking guns. I stopped in my tracks and raised my hands in the air as high as they would go.

One of the men ran up towards me.

‘What are you doing?!’ he asked in an extremely forceful voice.

‘Um. Walking?’ I said lamely.

‘Why are you walking here? Why are you off of the road?’ Incredulously.

‘Because I…prefer to take the path less traveled?’ I said hopefully.

The man stared for a moment, then sighed. ‘Where are you from?’

‘The United States.’

He looked me up and down. ‘Where are you coming from?’

‘Bolivia.’

A pause. Then, ‘Can I see your documents?’

I handed over my passport, prepared to be arrested. However, to my astonishment, he simply glanced at the ID page and quickly gave it back.

‘All right. You passed through the Bolivian checkpoint, right?’

‘Yes,’ I lied through my teeth.

‘Well, you need to go back onto the road. Did you know you were about to walk into a minefield?’

What?

‘A minefield?’ I said, disbelieving. ‘You mean, like, a copper mine?’

‘No, like military-grade, high-explosive land mines.’

I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. ‘Land mines. The kinds that blow off your legs when you step on them? Pressure mines? Bouncing Betty’s? That kind of a minefield?’

‘Yes, that kind of minefield.’

‘Oh, shit.’

——————————————————————————————

I must say, it’s a good thing the A-Team came roaring up on me like that, all threatening-like, or your author would be in eighteen different pieces scattered across the Chile-Bolivia border.

I went back to the road and followed the armored men’s instructions carefully. The next two kilometers are mined, both sides of the road. Don’t get off until you’re near the lake. Yes, sir.

I walked another hour until I arrived to the lakeshore. There, it seemed safe to get off the road, and I began my walk around the rather large lake to skirt the Chileans. The walk was very long, but had a nice view. Chilean border control was but a speck in the distance, and now that I was officially in Chile, they couldn’t really do much to prove that I had come from Bolivia unless they asked the land mine people; I had a valid Chilean visa that was good for the next two days. If they caught me, I would just say I had been camping on the lake, which is not illegal.

I officially succeeded in my day of evasion when I arrived to the road once more, this time about three clicks to the west of Chilean control. In less than five minutes, I had hitched a ride on a Bolivian semi truck bound for Arica.

I had made it! Both checkpoints successfully evaded, and I would arrive in Arica just after nightfall. The Peruvian border lay a mere ten kilometers from Arica; I could arrive that very same night! But it wasn’t over yet, not until I was safely in Perù; I held in the celebrations.

When we got to Arica, I waited for about ten minutes on my old friend Panamericana Sur, and was soon in a car headed to Tacna, Perù, which lay about twenty k’s across the border. We arrived to the Chile-Perù border crossing at around eight-thirty in the evening.

I walked up to the little immigration window to get the exit stamp for my nearly-expired Chilean visa. The man glanced at my entry stamp.

‘You’ve been here 88 days.’ He looked up at my face. ‘Where exactly have you been in Chile?’

‘San Felipe, Valparaìso. Around a bit.’

He studied it for a moment more, and then nodded. ‘All right.’ He slammed his stamp on the inkpad. ‘Thank you for visiting the Republic of Chile. Please come again soon.’

He pounded my passport with his rubber stamp, handed it back to me, and went back to staring blankly at his keyboard.

!

Success! Liberation!

I had done it; I had risked life, limb, imprisonment, and deportation, but I had done it! The adventure could now continue as planned! The joy and relief I felt was indescribable.

I got to Tacna and went to sleep at the local hospital (they loaned me an empty bed for a few hours). The next day I awoke and began my hitch to Cusco and Machu Piccu. I spent a lot of time walking in the desert and eventually arrived to Moquegua, where I am now, taking a few days’ much needed rest and doing a little bit of work on a heavily irrigated desert farm. From here I head to Puno, Cusco, Machu Piccu, and Yurimagua. After that, a riverboat to Iquitos, and then another riverboat on the Amazon River (yes, the big one) to Letecia, Colombia.

Farewell, with much relief,

The Modern Nomad

BORDER EVASION MAP: ROUTE TAKEN AND POINTS OF INTREST

1. The town of M-, and Bolivian border control

2. Minefield

3. Chilean broder control

What, you didn’t think I would make it?

I’ve only been here for three or four days, and I can already tell this is going to be an awesome couple of months. Let me fill you in…

I left Antofagasta around eleven in the morning, after posting last. Much walking was required for me to get out of the city…about three hours to get to the outskirts. Fortunately, Antofagasta is a pretty easy city to get around, as it’s just about eight kilometers of coast that doesn’t go inland more than two clicks. So I followed the main road along the beach until I got to the freeway, stopping only to smoke and chase some sort of beach lizard (capture unsuccessful. Well played, my friend…well played.)

When I got to the road the hitching was slow, mainly because there was a seemingly endless stream of young lady hitchhikers working the same area. It’s so unfair; those truckers think, ‘Well, maybe she’ll sleep with me this time.’ But she won’t, and I end up waiting for three hours in the hot desert getting sand blown into my eyeballs. But this is life.

So I finally hitched it back to the Ruta 5 and started working my way north towards Iquique. However, the hitchhiking gods had different plans for me, and my next ride turned out to be heading to Calama. Now, Calama is actually a lot closer to Bolivia than Iquique, so I decided that it couldn’t hurt to poke around there for a while. Plus, the guy driving told me that there was a train into Bolivia from this town, and I figured it would be pretty fun to freighthop across an international border. So to Calama I went.

When we arrived it was dark, and I was very tired, so I went straight to my new friend, el Hogar de Christo. After two or three hours of wandering around I managed to find the place just in time for dinner. After inhaling this, I went to sleep, knowing I would need the energy for a possible run after a train the next day.

I awoke the next morning to the familiar and consistent priestly chant of levantarse, and was out the door before seven.  I asked around for the train, but the general consensus was that the cargo train to Bolivia didn’t leave for three more days. It looked like this one was going to be on foot.

I passed the Calama town limits around nine-thirty, and began the trek on the 120 kilometre road through blank desert to San Pedro de Atacama, where I’m told a small dirt road of about fifty clicks goes to the Bolivian border.  For those of you who don’t remember, San Pedro de Atacama is the very same town I was in during late March, right before I almost died of thirst walking Paso Sico to Argentina. This time, I was going to bring more water.

For the first hour or two, no one picked me up, and I walked about eleven kilometers into the desert. Finally, after I was growing increasingly frustrated, a little French car pulled over and took me to San Pedro. We even took a little touristy stop at a place called Valle de la Luna, which, as its name implies, looks strikingly similar to the surface of the moon.

When I arrived to San Pedro, my plan was this: began walking to Bolivia as soon as possible. Try and reach the border within three days, and slip across the border during night or very early morning.

First, I needed water. I went to the Plaza to try to find a place to fill up my bottles and maybe buy a big jug, as I had about CL$800 on me. However, as I was on my way I passed a shop with a sign that caught my attention:

Atacama Mystica: Tours a Bolivia

I stopped. Here I could get some useful information about the road ahead of me. I walked inside.

There was a long-haired and bearded fellow sitting behind a desk and talking to two girls who looked like they had been out of the United States for all of thirty seconds. He was, presumably explaining the aspects of the tour to them.

‘This tour will go to very remote places. Sometimes the temperature will be very cold, around -35º C.’

‘Are there hot showers? And will our hotel have heaters?’ asked one of the girls whinely.

‘On the second night you will be able to have a hot shower and a warm room. The first night you will have to go without showering, as the pipes are frozen.’ He gave her a look of very convincing fake concern. ‘Is that going to be all right with you?’

She wrinkled her nose, apparently not all right with it at all. ‘No showers?’

‘None.’

Her face was getting the look that one gets when they realize that the wrapping paper the kid next door is selling is going to run you a hundred bucks. ‘I don’t know about that.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I have to use conditioner!’

Seriously? What, did you think remote areas of the poorest country in South America were going to have a Hilton just chilling there next to a mountain? I swear, people like that make me ashamed to be white.

After Paris and her BFF went off to pursue more hygienic activities, I went up to the guy behind the desk.

‘How many kilometers to Bolivia?’ I asked, in Spanish.

‘Fifty-five. Do you want a tour?’

‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘I haven’t got any money. I’d like to walk it.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Walk?’

‘Yeah.’

He shook his head. ‘You’re going to die, man. It’s the desert; there’s no water, and you have to climb about 2,000 metres!’

Hm.  I tapped my finger on the table for several seconds. ‘Well, what about hitchhiking it?’ I asked hopefully.

‘There’s only 4X4’s, and sometimes semis to Paraguay. But once they start going up into the altiplano, they can’t stop for anything. ‘

I thought about this for a moment. ‘Well,’ I said, shrugging, ‘if there’s a road, with cars, than it can be hitchhiked.’

He gave me a look. ‘It’s impossible, man. You’ll never make it.’

‘I made it through Paso Sico to Argentina.’ Barely, I didn’t add.

He frowned. ‘Paso Sico? Walking?’ He scoffed. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Well, I did.’ I turned to leave. ‘Thanks for the information, my friend.’ I walked out the door, then stopped. ‘Oh, and one more thing; is it true that Americans have to pay $130 to enter Bolivia?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah man. How are you going to pay for that?’

I shrugged. ‘I figure I’ll just sneak past.’

‘What if they see you?’

‘Well, I figured if I waited until nighttime-‘ I stopped. There was a girl sitting in one of the chairs that were arranged against the wall who seemed to be barely holding back fits of mirth. The guy behind the desk looked at her.

‘You think this is funny?’

‘I want to go on whatever tour he’s going on!’ she said with a thick British accent.

I grinned. ‘Mine’s a lot more fun, and it’s free!’ I said, winking.

The guy behind the desk shook his head. ‘He’s going to die, you know. And what are you staring at? Are you with him?’ he pointed to a blonde haired guy who had been gaping in the corner for the past five minutes.

‘No man, I’m just interested.’ He turned to me. ‘Can I have your email? I’m curious to see if you make it.’

‘Me too!’ chirped the British girl.

‘Me too,’ admitted the guy behind the desk. He sighed. ‘Well, if you’re really serious about doing this, then I think your best bet is to get out on the road very early tomorrow morning. You might be able to get one of the semis to pick you up before they start climbing.’

I knew he would come around. They always do. ‘Excellent!’ I said happily.

‘Where are you going to sleep tonight?’ he asked me.

‘I figure somewhere about three kilometers past the Chilean border control. I need to slip past them tonight so they don’t make me get an exit stamp.’

Of course, I was the center of attention for the next several hours, something I love. The British girl left a bit later, promising to return later to ‘buy me a pint,’ while me, the guy behind the desk (whose name was Eduardo) and the other guy closed up shop early and rolled a few joints.

We spent the afternoon smoking, and Eduardo came up with a theory about who I really was.

‘I think you have lots and lots of money,’ he said, coughing. ‘You have this technique; you tell all the pretty girls, “Oh, yeah, I’m so poor, and I’m just traveling around because I’m so damned spiritual. I’m just a lonely world traveler!”’ He swiped at the air. ‘And they eat it up! Just now, the little Inglanterra girl says she’s going to buy you a pint, and you gave your email and website to three others! And now,’ he said, passing the joint, ‘And now we’re giving you free weed!’ He shook his head. ‘I should take notes from you, I really should. You arrive in town this afternoon with nothing but $600 pesos and an empty water bottle. Now, you’ve got a date that includes beer, free marijuana, and contact information from three other tourist girls!’ He turned to his friend. ‘Don’t look into his eyes, man. He’ll suck you into his hypnosis!’

Everyone in the room found this hilarious, including me, since it was for the most part, true (except the part about me having money.) It was and is, so easy.

I hung around at the Bolivian tour place until it closed, and then went out for drinks with Eduardo and the British girl (whose name was Laura.)

Laura ended up buying me three beers and promised to give me bread if she saw me on the road, as she was going to Bolivia the next day with Eduardo’s tour. After drinks around midnight, I went back to the tour shop to collect my pack and start walking into the desert. Eduardo seemed genuinely concerned about me, and told me to let him know if I make it to Bolivia alive and not imprisoned. I assured him I would.

And off I went into the night. I reached the Chilean border checkpoint after about fifteen minutes, and slipped silently past, the sound of snoring inside never faltering as I tiptoed off into the desert.

An hour of walking later, I figured I was far enough away. I went off the road about two hundred meters, broke out my sleeping bag, and fell asleep within minutes.

I awoke several hours later to the sound of big engines working hard. I sat up; it was still quite early, perhaps around four in the morning. The nearly full moon hung delicately in the western sky, bathing the desert in a pale, ghostly light. I grabbed my water bottle for a drink of water, but it was frozen solid. Sighing, I rolled my sleeping bag up, shouldered my pack, and walked to the road.

After fifteen minutes of heading eastward with my thumb out, a semi pulled over. Inside was a guy from Paraguay, on his way to Argentina and Asunciòn.

After explaining to him what I was doing on the side of the road in the middle of the desert at four in the morning, he agreed to take me to the spot where the road diverts off towards Bolivia, about eight kilometers from the border itself.  We rode for several hours, the big engine groaning and grinding as we climbed into the altiplano.

About an hour and a half before sunrise, it was time for me to jump off. I waved goodbye to my Paraguayan friend as he chugged off towards Argentina, and then began walking on my lonely little dirt road to Bolivia.

I walked on the road only for about two kilometers; after topping a hill I saw, in the distance, the lights of the Bolivian border checkpoint. That meant it was time to, as they say, take the road less traveled.

I veered off the road and into the steep, uneven terrain of the altiplano. I figured if I went in a straight line and kept the checkpoint at least two kilometers to the north, I would be able to get by with few problems. Besides, how often do they get foot traffic over here? They would never be expecting it.

I crunched over uneven footing and sudden elevation change for the next hour. The light of the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when I judged myself to be at about the same longitude at the border checkpoint.

I officially arrived into Bolivia around the same time as the sun; I was well past the checkpoint by seven o’clock, and officially welcomed myself into the country with a cigarette and some water.

Afterwards, I rested for half an hour until the sound of an approaching vehicle awoke me. Sticking out my thumb, I managed to stop it.

They gave me a ride only a few clicks to another checkpoint, the entrance to the national park. I was told I would have to pay 150 Bolivianos ($20) to pass. I had other plans.

The guy at the national park was a good fellow. When I told him I had no money he seemed incredulous.

‘How are you going to get around?’

I told him I was hitchhiking.

‘How did you get here?’

I told him I walked a lot.

He stared at me for a moment, and then said, ‘Pase, no mas,’ shaking his head as he waived me on by.

After the national park checkpoint, I came to a fork in the road. One arrow pointed left, and told me the nearest place to go was ten kilometers away. The other pointed right, and informed me that I would have to travel fifty kilometers until I reached another person. I decided to go straight, off the road, and go explore a large frozen lake that lay ahead about one kilometer.

The walk was beautiful; I was surrounded on all sides by the barren Andes. Volcàn Licancabur, the highest volcano in South America, loomed ominously in the northern sky, the bunchgrass-studded slopes fading to bare rock as the altitude increased to higher than even this plant could survive.

When I reached the lake, I trade cautiously onto its frozen surface. All around the border was salt and minerals, left behind from evaporating lake water during the spring.

The ice seemed strong; I strode confidently out onto the lake, enjoying myself immensely as I slipped around on its frozen surface. Then I noticed that on the north side of the lake was a small settlement of some sort. Figuring I would replenish my water supply, I went to investigate.

After filling my bottles I went back outside to find several 4X4 jeeps idling outside. Tourists were getting out. This must be Eduardo’s tour group!

I looked, but I was unable to find my friends. I did, however, meet some cool hippie people my age from the States who gave me a little bit of weed and made me feel really good about myself. They even took a photo of me next to the lake (called, it turns out, Laguna Blanco, for its white, mineral-rich waters).

Laguna Blanco; don't worry, it's quite solidly frozen. The Volcan Licancabur is in the background on the right

I left the habitation around ten, and walked about three kilometers to the other side of the lake. After waiting on the side of the road for about two hours with absolutely zero vehicular traffic, I decided to head back. The wind was blowing like a hurricane and was very cold.

When I arrived back to the settlement, I asked if I could rest a bit in their eating area. They said it was perfectly all right, and the Señora even fed me free soup!

I told the people there my plan, which was to reach the nearest town and hitchhike to the north somewhere. They told me that there would be no more cars passing today, but that tomorrow I would probably be able to find something. They seemed concerned about where I was to sleep, but I assured them I was prepared for the freezing night.

While I was conversing with the Señora (whose name was Maxima, though I called her Tìa at her insistence) I made a passing comment that all my clothes were dirty. Tìa Maxima told me that I should spend tomorrow washing them, as traveling with dirty clothes was downright uncomfortable. I agreed with her.

We made a deal: I would work for her in the kitchen in exchange for a bed and food. The next day I would go down to the hot spring (which bordered the lake about 200 metres from the settlement) to wash my clothes, and leave the next day.

And that’s exactly what I did; the next morning I got up and helped take care of the morning rush of tourists in 4X4’s, washed a bunch of dishes, and had breakfast. Then, I gathered up all my dirty clothes and some laundry soap and headed down to the hot spring.

The warm, mineral-rich waters of the spring made washing easy. The dirt came out of my clothes faster than I’ve ever seen, and I think the minerals gave my clothes a nice, earthy smell. Plus, now I would have the essence of the volcano (which heated the spring) in my clothes forever, which certainly couldn’t hurt anything.

Essences are great things to have, and this part of Bolivia was chock-full of them. One of the people from the settlement took me on a free tour to the next lake over, Laguna Verde, which is, you guessed it, very green. Apparently the reason is because the Incas spent several thousand years dumping copper into the lake, and everyone knows that copper plus water equals green copper.

There were a lot of tourists at the lake from every corner of the globe. They all stood on the ridge half a kilometer from the lake, took a couple of photos with ridiculously long-lensed cameras, and then climbed back into their warm 4X4 and complained about the cold. I really, really, hate people like this. They come to this beautiful country in South America, far, far away from their home, take a few photos, and then tell everybody that they know the place.

Contrary to popular belief, you can’t capture the essence of a place with just a photo. A photo is like the cover of a book; you can get the basic idea of what it’s about, but you’ll never know all the glorious details until you open it up and start reading. You read a place like this lake with your hands, with your mind, and with your heart. You have to breathe in the cool wind blowing off the lake, to feel the frozen mud with your bare hands. You have to sit on the ice, stare out over the lake, and marvel at its existence. You must go back in time millions of years to when the lake first formed; be in awe at how many different species of animals, many no longer in existence, take drinks of water in the very spot you are sitting right now. Gasp when you see the lake slowly change from blue to brilliant green after generations of Incas make countless trips to its shore. Feel the spirit of the place.

That is how you capture the essence of a place; once you have this essence, it’s with you forever. I’m not much for believing that people have spirits; we’re much too insignificant. However, I sure as hell believe that places have spirits. Mountains, rivers, lakes, even buildings if they’re old enough. I hope that I was able to catch a little bit of the spirit of Laguna Verde that afternoon on the ice; I hope that maybe that spirit can help me or at least inspire me when times get rough.

That’s something your $2,000 camera can never capture.

Capturing the essence of a different lake, Laguna Blanco. A rare photo is taken, because every good book needs a cover...

When I returned to the settlement, I worked for Tìa Maxima the rest of the day. I ran into some French people who were staying the night who turned out to be very nice. They told me that they were climbing the Licancabur volcano the next day, something I was very interested in. It turned out, the guy that was going to drive them to the mountain was the very same guy that had taken me to the Laguna Verde earlier that day, and he told me that if the French didn’t mind, I was welcome to come along for free.

I jumped at this opportunity. This was a US$100 climb for free! I love climbing things as it is, but when it’s the highest volcano in South America I practically exploded with excitement.

We awoke the next morning at 3 a.m. and drove the twenty or so kilometers to the volcano. After eating a few bananas, we set off.

Now, I respect the guide a lot; he is a very old man, in his early seventies, and was always very, very nice to me. Plus, he was about to spend the next six hours shimmying up the steep slopes of Licancabur, quite a feat for someone his age. However, I don’t care how much I like and respect a person; I’m not following anybody up this mountain.

The Frogs weren’t hopping very fast, and the guide was trodding along at a slow but steady pace. I climbed on far ahead of the group, finding the trail easily in the bright light of the full moon.

Around sunrise, I was about halfway up. The rest of the group was about twenty minutes behind. I rested for ten minutes while I watched the sun peek over the eastern sky, and then continued on up the increasingly steeper slopes.

Around ten I had slowed down a lot, and was feeling all those cigarettes I’d smoked in the past year, along with the thin mountain air. The group was now only five minutes behind me, but I was determined to be the first on top.

Around eleven, I dragged my exhausted carcass over the top of the mountain. I didn’t even look at the scenery until a few minutes later when I caught my breath.

As soon as I did, I lost it again. The Andes stretched endlessly to the north and to the south; to the west was the uniform tan of the Atacama Desert. To the east were more mountains and volcanoes. I walked a bit and peered into the giant crater, which was filled up partially by a frozen lake.

A few minutes later the guide arrived, followed by my French friends.

Very exhausting, but entirely worth it. I'm holding onto that stick so I won't collapse into the crater

After I spent about fifteen minutes in the crater capturing the essence of the volcano (a very powerful essence indeed) we began our decent.

The decent was much quicker and much more fun than the ascent; the trail down was mostly loose soil and small rocks. Every step you took, your foot would slide three feet down and you could sort of half-skate down the side of the volcano. You could even slide down it like a slide whenever there weren’t too many big rocks.

I beat the rest of the group down by a good half hour, and spent my time napping in some ancient Inca ruins at the base. When the rest of the group arrived, we went back to the Jeep. The French rested while the guide and I went into the foothills to collect bags of a sort of dry, compacted moss similar to peat that is used as fuel for the fire, since there are no trees in the altiplano.

We gathered about fifty kilos apiece, and then went back to the jeep and drove back to the complex.

I was exhausted. Seriously, I felt like I just ran a marathon, and I’ve run seven marathons so I know what I’m talking about. My knees hurt the most from the climb. When we got back to the complex, I emptied the approximately eighteen pounds of earth from my shoes and took a delicious nap.

I awoke in the evening, helped in the kitchen, ate dinner, and went back to sleep. This morning I got up around seven and, after saying goodbye to my Bolivian friends all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, set off in the direction of Uyuni, about eight hours away along the endless dirt road.

The first tourist jeep I rode in was in fact going to Uyuni, but the driver wanted to charge me 100 Bolivianos for the ride. After a bit of negotiation, he agreed to take me about 50 kilometres to some thermal springs. I wanted to bathe upon arrival, since today makes the eighth day I’ve gone without washing, but they wanted to charge me money so I decided just to stink for a little longer.

Soon afterward, another tourist jeep took me the rest of the way to Uyuni; I rode all day with some Brazilians and even got a free lunch out of the deal.

Tomorrow I plan to start hitchhiking to La Higuera, which is a small town southwest of Santa Cruz. This sleepy little town has a history that I’m very interested in: it’s the place where, after being captured, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was taken, held prisoner, and executed by the Bolivian National Army in the seventies. While the Che may have gotten a little too into the whole Revolution thing in Cuba, the principals he was fighting for were something that any man with a heart and empathy could relate to. Help for the poor, selfless sacrifice of your own time and money for the benefit of the community, and an equal view of every man, woman, and child, be they black, white, yellow, rich, poor, tall, short, skinny or fat.

Maybe the essence of this place will have a little bit of Ernesto in it; I hope I can use that essence to keep me, as my Dad would put it, flying straight. I want it to keep me thinking of others before myself, to keep me giving to those who have nothing. I want it to keep me working on being a decent human being, someone whom people look up to and are inspired by. This I hope to gain from visiting the place of his death.

Let’s hope the hitchhiking in Bolivia is as great as Chile and Perù!

The Modern Nomad

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