Visa Extension Accomplished

This morning Kirsten and I headed to the Immigration Office here in La Paz to try to attain more days here in Bolivia. This whole process has been up and down. Luckily, last night we talked with Hugh and he said that you go into the building, turn to the right and there is a little desk, and you tell them you want your extension, and you get it. It sounded too easy to be true but it turned out to be. It was very exciting. Prior we had heard they might charge you, they might give you only 30 days, and maybe it would be cheaper to pay the $1.25 per day fee for overstaying your visa. Given that we have about 50 days left here, that felt like an expensive option.

Let me back up and tell you about how the process went for me. While we were in Ecuador we learned about Bolivia´s visa policy for United States citizens. When we tried to research it, we could find hardly nothing about it on any United States government page but we were directed to the Bolivia Embassy page to find out about the process. The whole thing is based on the idea of reciprocity.

In January, After lots of confusion and frustrations, we took the 3 hr bus ride from Puno across the border to Copacabana with a bus full of tourists from all over South America and various other places. You should have seen the faces of the other tourists when we started whipping out USD 20s to the border officials. "Is this a money exchange?" to "We have to pay?!" It went off with hardly a hitch after a couple days of interesting trips to copy places and internet cafes.

To cross the border as a US citizen, Bolivia says you need a Visa application, $135, a copy of your yellow card vaccination sheet, a passport picture, a copy of a credit card, return tickets, and an invite from someone in Bolivia or a hotel reservation. It's based off of the concept of reciprocity (and many countries have it down here now) and I completely understand it as the US makes it almost impossible for average people to come to our country from these countries. We didn't think it would be too big of problem until we ran into problems with our airline tickets and hotel reservations and we stayed a night in Puno extra trying to figure out why. The week before we went and got 6 copies of a fun passport picture taken (the smallest amount we could get) and went around town trying to find a copy machine that worked to get a copy of the vaccination sheet and credit card. When we got to the border, they were super friendly, and although they didn't want our hotel or airline reservation stuff that we worked so hard to obtain, they did wait a copy of our passport, so we ran next door conveniently to get that. At the last minute they remembered to ask for the additional passport photo, which was thrown into a huge stack of other things, so who knows where that will end up. We were granted 90 days, and three days later were assured when we left Bolivia by the still friendly border police that we would be able to get another 90 days, or an amount up to a total of 90 days when we returned. I would recommend having everything they say they require because I´m sure the process depends on the border official.

Flash forward to two weeks later when we tried crossing at a different border (Desaguadero) to save a significant amount of time. I´m pretty sure that the Peruvian border police stole $40 from me as they searched my bags and checked all my money for fake currency over and over while asking me lots of questions. I didn´t discover the missing money until the next morning but the whole experience left me feeling shaken up. I don´t think they see too many people from the United Stated crossing at this border. When we crossed they would only give us 30 days and said that we had to go to La Paz at a later date to get it extended. So we left the border with our multi-entry $135 visa, good for up to 5 years for 90 days a year, and a 30 day stamp. Even though we saved a lot of time, I don´t know if it was worth it.

All ended well today. I have a new 90 day stamp (free of charge) which will carry me through my departure date. And another plus was that the man at the immigrations office was very friendly. Heads up for anyone going to the immigrations office in La Paz, you need a copy of the page with your picture in your passport, a copy of your visa in your passport, and a copy of your green card (the one you get when you enter). There is a copy place right across the street.