I am the Deputy Leader for the Indonesia IOI 2025 delegation this year. I can't fathom how IOI 2025 has gone so horribly wrong before IOI has even started.

Firstly, I will share the experiences of the Indonesia team when traveling/arriving in Bolivia. Afterwards, I will mention some accounts provided by other countries about their struggles in Bolivia.

Before the journey even began, BoA cancelled one of the only flights from Sucre to Santa Cruz during the departure day, we are a bit concerned about the alternative flight as the transit time is only 1h10m especially after our recent experiences.

Our team's journey began on July 23rd before dawn, flying from Jakarta to Sao Paolo, we arrived the evening of July 23rd in Brazil without a hitch.

The following afternoon (July 24th), we got on our flight from Sao Paolo to Santa Cruz, departing at 14.00. During our check in process, we had to wait for some time because they were checking our documents (I would say roughly 15-45 minutes). We were not very surprised by this as we are a group III country under the Bolivia visa policy. Unfortunately (but at this point, not surprisingly), the flight was delayed by 2 hours. We made it to immigration in Santa Cruz around 17.50.

During immigration, we ran into an issue that we do not know exactly because none of the immigration officers could speak english (not even broken english, apparently). They were asking us for a document that no immigration document/information or even any guide from the IOI committee mentioned (the visa receipt). We spent around one and a half hours waiting in immigration until they let us in to the country. We were quite disappointed with the non-existent IOI committee support in this process, as they promised this in their arrival guide.

After exiting the immigration zone, we met two IOI representatives. One of the representatives helped us buy a SIM card and offered to help us exchange money with a rate 1 USD to 10-11 BOB. The other representative remarked in a somewhat pleading/desperate tone for us to learn Spanish. Personally, I don't think learning the language of the host country should be a prerequisite for attending the IOI. At the airport, we found a souvenir store that would exchange at a 1 USD to 12 BOB rate (thanks to help of team ITA as well ❤️) and we went back to our hotel using the hotel shuttle.

The following day (July 25th), the check-in process and flight to Sucre was quite uneventful (other than the flight being delayed, but at this point we're not surprised). After arriving at Sucre, there were was an IOI representative at the airport that could not speak a word of english. Eventually by using ChatGPT/Google translate we managed to understand that the price of the taxi to our hotel (San Marino Royal Hotel) from the airport is 10 BOB per person (for a total of 60 BOB). Once we arrived at our hotel, the taxi driver demanded 60 BOB extra. Due to being exhausted I just gave the taxi driver the extra 60 BOB and went to the hotel.

This morning (July 27th), there was a power outage that lasted for an hour. We are going to depart for our registration soon, hopefully with less disasters.

From other countries, there has been a lot of issues as well, mostly immigration related. One of the other issues mentioned is the Nigerian delegation got scammed by the IOI representatives at Santa Cruz, they were brought to an excahnge where the exchange rate was 1 USD to 6 BOB and asked to pay 60 BOB for a 5 minute taxi ride to the hotel (the hotel has a free shuttle, so this was ludicrous).

Personally, I understand that a country will have some limitations that the organizers can not overcome, but I think that the organizers should not expect delegations from other countries to be able to speak their language and especially to not scam the participants.

Hopefully I don't jinx it, but surely the guide/LO can speak english... right? I guess we'll see soon.

P.S. Sorry for the bad english, there will probably be edits to improve readability in the future if it is necessary.

Edit 1: I hided this post at the request of one of the team leaders at IOI temporarily (to be clear I was not forced to do this). Our guide was amazing, much thanks to her for ensuring a smooth experience for our students during IOI. Will write a future blog about things that happened in IOI.