I wish God loved an optimist

I hate the nation state concept, I decided this today after being denied entry into Bolivia. Now as a South African I am used to my passport sucking and being a hindrance to my life, but honestly, Bolivia! And what really frustrates me is way it happened.

I have already travelled all through Bolivia, and I wanted to go back for Carnaval in Oruro, which is apparently awesome. I had a pose of friends ready and plans made. All I had to do was get another Visa (Which I was assured would be a simple process when I got my first Visa). So I arrive in Puno, Peru (officially my least favourite place in the world) at 5 AM with a friend, Nicole, in tow. 3 and half hours later after a terrible breakfast (apparently in Puno you don´t use egg in an omlette) being told about 20 different directions I get to the Bolivian Consulate only to be met the worlds biggest Wanker.

To imagine this small time beaurocrat think of the Effiel tower and now imagine a giant hand jerking it off. Now maybe you get the idea of how much I disliked this man. My spanish is not great, but I can tell when some one is being openly insulting to me. This is why I only like dealing with women in governmental positions, men tend to use them as a constant machoistic cock-sizing competion. so after clearly beign told (for reasons I could not completely understand yet) that I could not enter Bolivia I left to fetch Nicole whose Spanish is far better than mine. Now Nicole is a young pretty little girl, and normally older men a polite to young women, but not this wanker. The long and the short of it is that he very rudely told us that we had to travel 11 hours to another consulate who maybe could help us, now clearly he could just stamp my passport, it doesn´t even require more than one page of paper work, but as I said he is a small man syndrome wanker. If anyone has some extra tiem to kill in Puno I highly suggest you spen it by burning down his house.

It turned out to be an open faced lie that we could get helped somewhere else in Peru, but at least the second Counsular we dealt with (a women I´d like to point out) was helpful and polite. She told me that I had to travel out of Peru before I could reenter Bolivia, now in theory this should not a problem, at this stage we were in Tacna, about 30 minutes from the Chilean border (which I hope I can enter with no problems, but that´s tomorrows story). The only problem is that almost all the Bolivian Consulates in Chile are closed cause the Consulars are all at the carnaval. So its impossible for me to get to Carnaval cause I dont have a free stamp in my passport and I haven´t crossed enough lines on a map recently.

I suppose it is a an unfortunate series of events, I should have organised this earlier but I couldn´t cause I had my wallet stolen and couldn´t leave Cusco (Be careful Cusco will destry your soul, I just got out alive). And I am sure that Visa´s are important (Thats a lie, allot of the time I think Bolivia is playing at being a country).

At this time I am reminded of what I was told by Robin Esrock , a travel writer and reporter for the National Geographic channel who I spent some time in brazil with. He told me that when traveling it is important to remember that "Where you are, is where you are meant to be" (He also told me that mot being able to speak the same language as a women simply removes the need for a chat up line, also good advice).

So maybe I am meant to go to Chile, Swim at a beach in Arice (thus swimming in both South Amercian oceans), and if I can I´ll get to San Pedro de Atacama (cause I need more desert in my life). And a 3 days bus trip acorss argentina can´t be all that bad right.

Anyway thanks allot to Nicole for traipsing around Peru with me trying to get a visa, hope you enjoy carnival. Sorry to Tiago, Daan and Jamie for not being able to meet you in Oruro, have a blast.

P.S. Spell check doesn´t work, the computer at the internat cafe is too old.