Five hours, wow, they put you through the wringer. It could be you provided the Bolivian border officials with too much information. I guess you were hoping your Argentine permanent residence application would spare you. Bolivia and Argentina have a friendly history, but borders are about collecting fees for the homeland. Wonder how long it would have taken if you just showed your US passport and paid the $135 USD. Were you trying to get more that the standard 90 days per year visa?

What a drag that Bolivia is charging US citizens a tourist fee when entering overland. Argentina started the overland collection at the beginning of 2013.

I make it a habit to only give a border official the minimum number of documents. One time I accidentally gave too many documents and the official started studying them, until I interrupted, saying something like "oops...you don't need that one..." Giving officials more documents than they need is just opening the door to problems. Immigrations and Customs are nosy folk that love to study documents and find problems. As a duel citizen of Ireland I avoided the fees and special visa requirements several times...but do you think I pull out two passports and ask them to pick one? No way! Although I heard a story from a rider (duel citizen of US and UK) who would slap one passport down and if it raised issues he would grab it back and slap down the other one.

My motto is, "keep it simple." I have ready two small stacks, copies of the key documents: title of ownership, vehicle registration, drivers license, passport...full stop. Original license, registration, passport in a separate neat stack, and the original title in a presentation book with plastic sleeves. Officials respond well to those that are prepared. They might want to give the original title a quick look, sometimes they skip that part. Having the original title in a plastic sleeve keeps it in handy and in good shape. Like government works everywhere, they want to process the paperwork, fill out the dumb forms (paper or electronic) and get you out of their space. It helps to gently point out on the various documents the info they they need: location of the VIN on the title and/registration, license plate number, color of bike, your name (it needs to match the rest of the documents...)

In the presentation book with plastic sleeves, I have carried an International Driver Permit, once current, the second time I carried the expired one...and a yellow fever card. Glad I had the paperwork, even if it never was needed. As far as having a yellow fever card, I was bitten by a few mosquitoes here and there, so who knows. All of the papers that were given to me at a border go right into the presentation book, the one with plastic sleeves. I never lost an important scrap of paper in months and months of international travel, across dozens of borders.

Enjoy Bolivia! It is brutal and beautiful.

__________________
Peter B
2008/09 - NJ to Costa Rica and back to NJ
2012/13 - NJ to Northern Argentina, Jamaica, Cuba and back to NJ
2023 - Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia...back to Peru.

Blogs: Peter's Ride