Border Crossing Argentina

You hear all kinds of bad stories about border crossings, but the reality is that most of the time they are just that, stories. We heard about the Bolivia Argentine crossing, going this particular way, that someone had been waiting in the queue for two hours without moving one inch, the line had been getting longer and longer, everyone was being searched, everything out of your bag, the whole bit. I said to Jo that we would see what they were doing and if they started searching everything in every ones bag, that we should just head back to La Paz and fly into Argentina. I think she thought this a bit extreme, although she didn't actually voice anything. It all went very smoothly really, the officials, and there were 3 of them, were sitting there drinking Mate (Argentinian national drink, dried leaves out of a gourd) chatting away, with only one guy actually doing anything, he must have been high up to be the only one trusted to stamp the passport, type the info into the computer and to hand write the info into a book, as a backup maybe. Either that or he was a trainee and he was doing his border security test... or he was the main man and he had two new recruits.... this could go on for ever. And that is just what it felt like. I was starting to believe the stories and was certain that they would pounce on my bag and demand to see everything inside. I liked the other border crossings we had had, when all we had to do is show them our Aussie passports. They would grin at us, say kangaroo, laugh, stamp our passports and wave us out the door, much more pleasant I was even starting to worry about the amount of dust I had inhaled on the bus ride and whether or not to declare that I was carrying soil into a foreign country. I finally got my passport back, put it safely in my pocket, put on my backpack and went to meet Jo in Argentina. There was another guy standing off to the side, he also wanted to check passports. I mean really, he had just seen me stand at the counter for ten minutes, did he think that the guys at the counter would pass me through without the right stamps, not that I actually checked if I had the right stamps. I am suspecting that this guy was in fact the main man, because he just looked me in the eyes flipped open the passport ( upside down ) and handed it back without even seeming to look at it. Wow, he could read upside down from his peripheral vision, now we were talking the shit. This is the place.

I caught up with Jo and our new Norwegian Friend and we headed into town to catch another bus. Our Friend could speak enough Spanish to keep us out of trouble, we had two choices, feed ourselves or get on the next bus ( 6 hours ) in about 3 minutes....... take your time......... be we need to decide now...... the next bus after this one is in 3 hours. I voted for a feed, and it wouldn't make that much difference seeing as we were going to the same hostel and our Friend knew where she was going. The bus ride to Salta went without a hitch, great road compared with Bolivia and a great bus. Our new friend had been talking about how she had been waiting to get back to Argentina for a good steak meal, and talked us into heading out for dinner with her.

PS. I didn´t take any photo´s during the Crossing.