DAY 21

The other side of the door

Location: Hito Cajones, Bolivia

It is clear I would make a hopeless secret agent; 007 is sadly not for me. I would, it seems, find it impossible to cross a frontier without attracting attention. It was a place called Hito Cajones between Bolivia and Chile, way up in the sky, stuck between two volcanoes, and at 4480 metres, one of the highest border posts in the world.

Abed had been driving for seemingly a million hours and I was still holding on for what I felt was my very existence. Toyotas, I swear, can lurch in every direction. They are rather like riding a camel. Forward, back, up, down, as well as side-to-side. You have no idea what is coming until it appears. I had been listening to Bruno, watching him point left and right as we had travelled; coloured lakes and geysers, deserts named after surrealist painters, flamingos, and mountains, each with a mystical story. The abandoned bride, the wayward son, the tribal king who lost an empire. And somehow, I missed that wash in the White Lake, the scrub Bruno had promised.

“We have no time,” he had shouted as Abed had flashed by the lake at our normal terminal velocity. “The border will close in 20 minutes.” He had lifted his left arm, while pointing to his watch with a forefinger to demonstrate his worry.

“What happens if we are late?” I asked.

“We have a cold night,” came the reply. “We stay there until morning.”

So, imagine a stretch of dirt-track, straight, a kilometre long, brownish grey, a single volcano either side, no trees, nothing green, not even cacti. Beside the track sits a jackal, a fox-like creature that is unperturbed as you approach. Across your path lies a bent and scratched yellow-coloured barrier. It is horizontal, perhaps two metres from the ground, but without fencing or wall either side. You could drive around it, left or right. The barrier looks an afterthought and has no air of anything official. Left there by accident, a meaningless structure. What the Hell were the Bolivians thinking?

Fifty metres further left is a bungaloid rectangular building made of concrete and brick. Its doors are shut, windows shuttered, it is lifeless and no larger than a squash court. You are alone, the building is alone and the barrier has no function. The jackal, meanwhile, looks bored. It is, you suspect, waiting to be fed.

“Welcome to the frontier,” announced Bruno, turning slightly in his seat. I felt the Toyota slow as Abed started to bring it to a halt. It was the first time I had seen him brake without Bruno touching his shoulder.

“That’s Chile over there,” Bruno added. He pointed to a low pile of rock a hundred metres to our front. Beyond that was a figure I had initially missed, well built, male, hands in pockets and waiting patiently. “The Chile team,” said Bruno. “They are waiting to take you on. But first we must get you out of Bolivia.”

I shifted my position slightly. The continual thumping, bumping and juddering had made me saddle sore. My right buttock needed a rest. Twisted awkwardly to my left, for a moment I closed my eyes and let my imagination rip. The Chile team, an abandoned border, nothing official in sight, was this not a hostage exchange? Was I not a secret agent seeking to escape? Surely James Bond had done something like this, arrived at a remote location and been passed from one courier to another? The location, to the writer within me, was perfect for anything covert.

“Knock on the door,” instructed Bruno, as the Toyota came to a halt a few paces from the bungaloid building. “Better you than me.”

I had been dragged to reality, my secret agent thoughts instantly buried. “Knock? Me?” I queried. I could see the building’s door, wooden, scratched, unpainted, and tight shut. There was no suggestion of anything beyond.

Bruno nodded.

For some reason, I did not question the instruction. I clicked open my Toyota door and took the few steps to the building. It was, in any event, good to take pressure from my buttock. I looked around me as I crossed the short distance. No signs, no instructions, nothing to suggest it was a border, other than a fluttering Bolivian flag gripping a battered and chipped white flagpole. The flag with its red, yellow and green tricolour stripes. Red for the blood of soldiers, green for fertility and yellow for the minerals buried deep within Bolivian soil.

I reached the door, lifted my clenched fist, was about to knock, but then hesitated. I looked back at Bruno who was leaning from the now open Toyota window. “Go on,” he encouraged, although for some reason he spoke in a loud whisper.

I raised my eyebrows in question. “Are you sure?” I was asking, although sought not to speak. Generally, I do not knock on doors at frontiers. Again, I hesitated, my clenched fist fell to my side, I leaned forward and placed my right ear to the door. Best be prepared before knocking.

I listened. Not a sound. No shuffling, no talking, no faint radio music. There was nothing to suggest life existed the other side of the door.

“Go on!” I heard Bruno encourage. This time his whisper was louder. “Quick! The border will close in less than one minute!”

One minute? Jesus, I thought. I would have to knock. Maybe the officials, if such existed, had shut up shop early. After all, there was hardly great demand for their services at the frontier.

So, I knocked, first a tiny tap, almost hoping I would not be heard. I tapped, I waited, nothing. I tapped again, I waited, still nothing. I listened, not a whisper, not a sound. Just Bruno, leaning from his window behind me and now shouting, “Come on! Hit harder! They must be there!”

It was on my seventh knock, maybe eighth, my knuckles scraped, almost bleeding thanks to solid wood, that I heard it. I had placed my ear to the door once more, straining for any sound. There it was. A shuffle, a scrape, distant mumbling. Moments later the door flew open. Me half hunched, head to one side, looking more like Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther, and there stood the official. At least I thought official, as he was on the other side of the door. There was no uniform in sight. For all I knew he could have been a drug baron up to mischief.

“Sí (yes)?” he asked.

“Umm,” I replied. I felt caught, trapped, exposed. “Umm” was the best I could manage.

“You want?”

English, I thought? Did I just hear English? Am I at the world’s remotest frontier and there is someone who can actually speak my tongue?

“Is this the border?” I inquired, unsure how I might start the conversation.

“Yeez,” came the reply. OK, I thought, maybe the English was not so good after all. The Bolivian, for I assumed that was his nationality, was showing no sign of welcome. I had clearly disturbed his peace. Bruno meanwhile had fallen totally silent. Gone his encouragement, gone his shouting, gone his insistence I should knock.

“Umm,” I continued, still struck largely mute by the occasion. And then a surge of courage. “Is this where I leave Bolivia?”

“Leave?” The Bolivian looked genuinely distressed. “Why you want leave?”

“Umm. I have a journey.” Maybe, I thought, this deserved a better explanation. The Bolivian stood stationary, emotionless, immovable in the doorway and I was not about to barge past. Anyway, as I looked, I saw the pistol at his waist. This was not a time to argue. For some reason, I felt I was bargaining, taking a few dollars off the price in a local market. I needed to say more.

I took a deep breath. “Now you ask,” I continued, “I am unsure why anyone might want to leave such a beautiful country.” It did not seem appropriate to talk of sunburned lips, my sun-blinded eyes, or the money exchange where I had clearly been cheated. Nor was it the moment to extol the virtues of coca tea.

“You theenk my country good?” queried the official, this time allowing himself the tiniest smile. I saw the black emptiness of two missing front teeth, almost forcing me to look closer, while trying not to stare. You do not stare in Bolivia, that is not something you do. There was the scar on the left cheek, clearly made by something violent, a tattoo bursting up from his open neck shirt to just beneath his chin. There were numbers as well, several, tattooed on his right forearm. Numbers such as you might see on a prisoner. The man before me had long attended the University of Life. I could only hope he was a genuine official. Nothing is what it seems in Bolivia.

“I theenk your country good,” I replied, regretting instantly my mimicking of the official’s English. I am forever digging myself into deep holes.

“Then you may go,” said the Bolivian, missing totally my inappropriate jollity. “Go to that country they call Chile. It belongs to Bolivia, you know.”

I nodded, smiling slightly in understanding. It was a story I had heard from Bolivians many times, but this was not an occasion to hold a political conversation. You never know where they will end.

“Passport!” instructed the official. In a flash, I pulled it from a trouser pocket and within moments it was in the Bolivian’s calloused hand.

It was over in seconds. Passport with official, clickety-thump with stamp, and next I knew I was headed to Chile on this, my second occasion. I glanced across the unmarked frontier as I walked back to the Landcruiser to gather up my bags and wish farewell to Abed and Bruno. They would not, indeed could not, join me in Chile. That was the job of Oliver. I saw him there, the well-built figure on the Chilean side, now maybe twenty metres distant.

Oliver was an Englishman through and through, from somewhere near the city of Liverpool. He raised his arm in welcome, that nonchalant British greeting, which looks cold but is actually warm if you understand it. I gave a casual wave in return.

“You nearly didn’t make it,” said Oliver, when I took the few steps across the frontier to shake his hand. “They are pretty strict about timing at the border.”

“Close one,” I nodded, as I climbed into another four-by-four, turning to look back at Bolivia as I did so. The Toyota was already kicking dust, Abed’s foot hard downwards, Bruno’s hand waving a vigorous farewell from the window. Bruno the Bolivian, Abed the speed merchant, a remarkable duo, were gone.