Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Bolivia Visa


Unfortunately for us, there are only 2 Bolivian embassies on the east coast- in Washington D.C. and New York. I decided to visit the Bolivian embassy in NY while I was there for the Argentinian visa. It was a small office and the lady at the counter was not very helpful. I carried all the documents( as listed on the website) with me, and she reviewed it grudgingly however they needed 2 days to process the visa. We were out of time and so decided to get the visa in Peru. We had called the Bolivian embassy in Lima but they spoke only Spanish so could not get any information. The Indian embassy in Lima was able to confirm that we could get our Bolivian visa in Peru.

In Lima we went to the Bolivian consulate but we were late in getting there ( open only until 12pm). We called the next day and got confirmation that our visa could be obtained in Puno.

The Bolivian embassy was near the town center. The building was not fancy and the office was even more basic. The consulate officer spoke only Spanish and was perturbed why we were sent to him. He had to review his instruction manual ( which was photocopied so many times that it was hard to read the print). Eventually he was able to find India in it, and was even more bothered that his service was free of charge. He asked us to bring the filled out visa application form, available online along with other supporting documents.

We returned and he approved our documents. He agreed to give us the visa on the same day in a couple of hours. H went to collect the passports, and oddly the visa was given on the page opposite that of Brazilian visa( odd since the passport had many blank pages). Also he asked H to get him copies, which was really funny.

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