Bolivia-Chile Border – Not As Bad As Everyone Says

A very popular route to Chile from Bolivia is definitely the one that goes via the salt flats. After all, that’s pretty much why everyone is in Bolivia in the first place; might as well make the most of it and get dropped off at the border. The onward ticket to the nearest town in Chile, San Pedro de Atacama, is also included in the tour price: you can’t go wrong.

Or can you? It seems that almost everyone has trouble with this border – not because it’s slow, or dodgy, or scary, or dirty, or laden with evil money changers. Nope, as a shock to the system after Bolivia and Peru, it causes trouble because it is reputed to be so… strict. How strict? No teabags. As a Brit, I’m telling you, that is a painful restriction. To hand over one’s teabags… heartrending. But, generally, no plants, dried or otherwise, no plant products (so no oil, and if you’re cooking for yourself as you travel that’s an annoying one, too. I can’t count how many bottles of cooking oil we bought on the course of the journey), certainly no fruit, veg, meat or dairy. No honey. Really, honey? And all this wouldn’t be so bad if, like every other nearby border, nobody actually cared about the rules. But here they are actually enforced, and your bags are all scanned and searched.

So it’s obvious where I’m going with this, yes? Don’t carry any of the above. Because if you don’t, you’ll find that you have a really nice, civilised border crossing. Clean building, efficient officials, clean toilets with seats for which you do not have to pay. No charge to get into Chile (unless you get fined for carrying the wrong stuff) and a quick ride in a nice bus to San Pedro. Such a change after the border procedures of the surrounding countries, and quite a pleasant one. As long as you’re prepared for more formal goings-on (and let’s face it, if you’ve ever travelled through the UK or US then you’re probably well-versed in finishing your bottles of water and buying toiletries in under 100ml bottles, to say nothing of making sure that your tweezers are in your checked bag, lest you tweeze someone to death on the flight) then this is actually a really smooth, quick crossing. I actually quite liked it.

Sophie Carville