'Everything is expensive!' Bolivia faces a shocking economic collapse
Across what was once South America’s second-largest producer of natural gas, everyone is searching for fuel
EL ALTO, Bolivia — Fuel is rapidly becoming one of Bolivia’s scarcest commodities.
Long lines of vehicles snake for several kilometers outside gas stations all over Bolivia, once South America’s second-largest producer of natural gas. Some of the queues don’t budge for days.
While frustration builds, drivers like Victor García now eat, sleep and socialize around their stationary trucks, waiting to buy just a few gallons of diesel — unless the station runs dry.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to be worse off," said García, 66, who inched closer to the pump Tuesday as the hours ticked by in El Alto, a bare-bones sprawl beside Bolivia's capital in the Andean altiplano.
Bolivia's monthslong fuel crunch comes as the nation's foreign currency reserves plummet, leaving Bolivians unable to find U.S. dollars at banks and exchange houses. Imported goods that were once commonplace have become scarce.
The fuel crisis has created a sense that the country is coming undone, disrupting economic activity and everyday life for millions of people, hurting commerce and farm production and sending food prices soaring.
Mounting public anger has driven crowds into the streets in recent weeks, piling pressure on leftist President Luis Arce to ease the suffering ahead of a tense election next year.
“We want effective solutions to the shortage of fuel, dollars and the increase in food prices,” said Reinerio Vargas, the vice rector of Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University in the eastern province of Santa Cruz, where hundreds of desperate truckers and residents flooded main squares Tuesday to vent their anger at
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