... It´s time to point towards the Pole, head south, and visit Argentina.
And, hoo boy, have we taken to it. As the wealthiest South American country, the roads are more soundly paved, supermarkets exist, and the locals are less apt to stare. Getting here, though, was a gladitorial battle with the bureaucracy of a border. Valuable days slipped by in Villazon, the border town, as the right papers doddled into the right order finally allowing a tired civil servant (tired of working, or tired of seeing our faces -- not sure) to squish an ordinairy stamp and clear the way for two guys just hoping to see a new country.
Flatly put, it was an ordeal. But in the successful efforts, we fell in with a bank manager who, in the end, was a savior. Her and her husband, Susy and Miguel, himself a Bolivian border agent, have two sons of similar age, both off in college, whom they very evidently miss very much.
Empty nest syndrome, right? Without even knowing it, I believe we filled for the sons they had been missing. On each occassion a problem would arise -- and believe me, it was again and again -- we would visit Susy, hard at work at her bank, in search of an answer. After all was said and done, we had lunch with Villazon´s mayor, became all too well acquainted with the Argentine border agents, and began referring to Susy and Miguel as a second family. They turned out to be the best connected couple in town and can expect a bottle of wine at Christmas for their friendship.
Plus we eventually made it into Argentina. Southward, not downward, stretches the journey.
We´ve managed to set up shop along sandy banks -- the very locales that sit many miles outside town where no bus can take you: 
Since getting in, we´ve put no less than 400 miles between ourselves and the border. The southern equivalent of the hometown? Not that far away, in the scheme of things.
Indeed, scorching.
... It´s time to point towards the Pole, head south, and visit Argentina.
And, hoo boy, have we taken to it. As the wealthiest South American country, the roads are more soundly paved, supermarkets exist, and the locals are less apt to stare. Getting here, though, was a gladitorial battle with the bureaucracy of a border. Valuable days slipped by in Villazon, the border town, as the right papers doddled into the right order finally allowing a tired civil servant (tired of working, or tired of seeing our faces -- not sure) to squish an ordinairy stamp and clear the way for two guys just hoping to see a new country.
Flatly put, it was an ordeal. But in the successful efforts, we fell in with a bank manager who, in the end, was a savior. Her and her husband, Susy and Miguel, himself a Bolivian border agent, have two sons of similar age, both off in college, whom they very evidently miss very much.
Empty nest syndrome, right? Without even knowing it, I believe we filled for the sons they had been missing. On each occassion a problem would arise -- and believe me, it was again and again -- we would visit Susy, hard at work at her bank, in search of an answer. After all was said and done, we had lunch with Villazon´s mayor, became all too well acquainted with the Argentine border agents, and began referring to Susy and Miguel as a second family. They turned out to be the best connected couple in town and can expect a bottle of wine at Christmas for their friendship.
Plus we eventually made it into Argentina. Southward, not downward, stretches the journey. 
