How to get from Iquique, Chile, to La Paz, Bolivia, by bus 🚌

The border crossing from Chile to Bolivia

Well, where to begin, this border crossing is one to remember. We, the only tourists in the bus, didn’t exactly know what to do. It’s always advisable to make some bus friends or at least make sure to recognise your bus buddies. In the case of this bus trip, we befriended a Bolivian father and son, that went to Chile to buy a guitar – the guitar that they carried was a good starting point for a small conversation 😊.

The indigenous that don’t do the proper border crossing

When you come closer to the border, a lot of indigenous people in the bus are standing up, packing their bags and cloths, really packed themselves like donkeys, and all wanted to get out of the bus first. We were like – what’s happening – do we have to be quick too??… Because, we didn’t know. But we decided just to watch them and wait. Almost 3/4th of the people in the bus got out, and, as it appeared, didn’t do the proper border crossing, but all went by foot, remember, fully packed, via a big detour – guess they have walked for hours – around the official border crossing. Eventually we picked them up somewhere at the road after we did the proper border crossing.

The other people, including you and me as a tourist, and our guitar friends

Just, stay at the bus. You don’t have to anything special. Well, a lot of waiting is involved – two hours or so. The bus will queue after the other busses that are waiting. When the bus is in the bus queue, you can walk a bit around the bus to stretch your legs, or just stay at the bus. You don’t have to do anything yet.

The custody counters

When you are about the third bus in the row the driver or his assistant will come to call everyone that is in the bus. Now it is the bus’s turn to take the people through custody. You then walk with the remaining ‘legal border crossing people’ that have stayed in and around the bus, guided by the driver’s assistant to a new queue of people. You have to take your luggage with you – but the assistant will tell you this. This queue of people will lead to two counters, first the Chilean border crossing and next to this the Bolivian border crossing (just in the same building, few meters apart). When you entered Chili you got a receipt, make sure to hand this in with your passport.

The luggage checking and back to the bus 🛅

Bolivian’s might want to check your luggage, but not to a big extent. I just had to open my smaller backpack for 2 seconds and it was all right. After this, you leave the custody building and walk just back to the bus, put your luggage back on the bus and take your seat again. Off you go again.

This whole border crossing took about 3,5 hours

About two hours of waiting in the bus queue and about one and a half waiting in the people queue. But, well, then: you are in Bolivia! Including new stamps – off course!