My gas tank was getting low before I hit the border but I'd been told gas was cheaper in Bolivia so I waited. That proved to be a bad idea. All of the gas stations in the Bolivian side of the border were permanently closed. After riding around searching (and wasting gas) I stopped at a military checkpoint on the way out of town and asked the guard how far out was to the next town with gas. He told me that it was really close. Probably a ten minute ride. Feeling relieved I headed out of the dingy border town along lake Titicaca. Right on schedule and just after I'd switched to my reserve fuel there was a town with two filling stations. Both were deserted. At another military checkpoint I asked how far it was to the next town. Close they said. With a service station, no less. By now I was anxious about my fuel and wasn't looking forward to pushing the bike along the side of the highway but what the hell. I needed gas. When I pulled up to the pumps at the lone filling station in tiwanaku they were taped off. No gas. A man was running some kind of pump next to the building so I asked him what the deal was. No gas. Did he know anyone in town who had gas? Nope. So I rode around through this little town trying to find anyone with gas. No luck. Back near the highway I parked beside a building housing a small market. The woman inside had no suggestions and I knew that if I tried to reach the next town some 40km away I'd be screwed. I stood there for awhile and asked a few passers by if they knew where I could find some gas. "At the gas station. Tomorrow."

Shit. Well. At least I was near a place with food. There was a big field between the market and the filling station. I figured I could pitch my tent there for the night. Not ideal but not the end of the world. Still, it was only about 330 and I wasn't ready to give up yet. Gradually a number of cabs gathered nearby, closer to another brick building. Next to that building was a circle of folks passing around a . Or s, but just one at a time. That's the south american way apparently. In any case one of the cab drivers, a stout woman with long black braids and a colorful traditional getup wandered over to me. How much gasolina did I need, she wanted to know. I said about for liters should do the trick. She wanted to know if I'd pay 15 bolivianos per liter. Sure I said. On the one hand I had no idea what the going rate for gas was in Bolivia. On the other I didn't give a shit. I knew that high octane gas in Peru was about 13 soles. That worked out to about $4/liter. Expensive by us standards but... It usually cost me about $20usd to fill the tank in Peru. At the border I'd changed $100usd for 690 bolivianos. I didn't do all of the math at the time but 15 bolivianos seemed reasonable. And so the cab drivers scrounged up a couple empty 2 liter did bottles, jacked up one of the cabs (a Toyota coruna if I recall correctly), and proceeded to fill the bottles directly from the gas tank under the vehicle. It was hilarious. They thought so and I thought so. I paid the woman whose Toyota had been my blood donor 60 bolivianos and waved goodbye.

Still at 4000m above sea level and now with some pretty low quality gas mixed with a little coca cola the klr sort of sputtered along those next 40km until I reached the next town and- no shit- the filling station had gas. The guy told me that because of some government bullshit it was really expensive. Whatever. I was watching some dark storm clouds on the horizon and thinking about how nice out would be to sleep in a bed in la Paz... He also wanted to know how much I needed before he pumped. Some sort of rationing I guess. The tank held about 20 liters so that's what I told him and that's about what she took. 160 bolivianos.

So I'd paid double for my for liters from the cab ladies. Oh well. Assuming one us dollar is about 7 bolivianos that means I paid her about $8.50. Well worth it to not sleep in a tent during a rainstorm at 4000m.

Tldr; some nice folks sold me gas directly from their tank... For a premium.