What We Have Here Is a Situation Where Six Lanes Are Merging into Two

I really like to drive, but I am very happy I was never behind the wheel during this trip.  The traffic we experienced in Peru and Bolivia was often chaotic and, particularly once we were out of the cities, there seemed to be no one enforcing any traffic laws or speed limits.

We had a bit of a taste of what was to come when, about 10 minutes after leaving the Lima airport, we suddenly experienced a traffic jam.  Kathleen asked our driver/guide what was going on and he memorably responded, "What we have here is a situation where six lanes are merging into two."  OK, that'll do it.

From Cusco, we took a tour on one day to see various sights in the Sacred Valley, and on another day, to Machu Picchu.  I don't think I have ever seen such aggressive tour bus drivers, nor have I ever spent that much time in a bus that was doing that much passing (sometimes without regard to the solid yellow line down the middle of the road).

Best of all, though, was what awaited us in La Paz.  On our way to the airport as we were leaving town, we encountered a traffic jam.  It appeared that there had either been an accident or a very close-call about 30 yards in front of us.  We could see a truck driver arguing with a van driver, when the truck driver exited his vehicle and knocked the van driver's mirror right off with his fist.  At this point, our taxi driver got out of our car and I assumed he was going to helpfully direct traffic.  Nope.  He decided to offer his own two cents on the situation to the already aggrieved drivers.  I was not too pleased with this turn of events.

Eventually, after exchanging some particularly choice words with the truck driver, he returned to our car and we slowly moved forward.  As we approached what had been the scene of the incident, I realized that there was traffic moving opposite us on our left and on our right.  I have never been in a car where I could see the lanes on both sides of us moving in the opposite direction.  I don't think that was how the La Paz traffic planners had drawn this up and can only assume we were going the wrong way, but then so was everyone else in our lane.  Very strange.