Hello Bolivia

The Bolivian verison of Copacabana is a little town on lake Titicaca, which means its quite similar to Puno (cold and wet) only the internet hasn't really made it there yet. On the plus side though, Copacabana has equally good food - cheaper, and better activities and even a beach.





The day after we arrived we decided to get an early boat to Sun Island, and while looking for tickets we bumped into a friend we met in Puno, Maria Celeste and her friend Stuart. So we got on the same boat and had some nice company for the day. After a two hour slow-boat to the northern port we got off and went to the local museum for a quick explanation of the cultures that are prominent on the island. After the whirlwind 5-minute speach we had another 3 minutes to look around the displays at the finds from the area. After that we walked up to the temple area, which is still used today and sprouts a sacred rock, Titicarrca, and an ancient labyrinth. It was a really nice tour the only drawback was the climb up to it, about 400 altitude meters which put us at 4300 meter above sealevel.

After that tour we decided to take the scenic walk to the southern port where the boat back to Copacabana would leave from. Its a 3 hour walk across some hills (yes, more uphill clmbing required) that took us past ancient ruins and a lot of sheep and alpaca pastures. All the time with a fantastic view of the island, some nearby rock islands and lake Titicaca in general. Even the brief rain and the scamming islanders selling 'tickets' to enter the various parts of the island couldn't dampen our mood. Though the women at the last point really tried. I've played a bit of football and ice hockey in my days, but man, that old lady had a mean body-check. We managed to slip by her though and made it safely down to the boat and back to Copacabana.

Once back on dry land we grabbed dinner and a few drinks with Maria Celeste and Stuart and decided that the next day we should probably go to La Paz and sort out our travel arrangements to get down to Uyuni, before all the buses and trains were booked out. So we got our tickets for the next day and agreed to get in touch with them in La Paz, since they are also heading there.

Goodbye Peru

After leaving Cusco, we caught a bus to Puno, the largest town on the Peruvian shores of Lake Titicaca (3820m) to spend some time, explore the lake and the surrounding region.

Our bus left at the reasonable time of 8:30am and was scheduled to take 6 hours to take us to Puno. Great, we thought, we'll grab some biscuits and bananas and have a late lunch by the lake in Puno. Not so great... turns out that our bus driver couldn't find third gear and so when we were 5 hours into the trip and we passed the half-way point, we knew we were in trouble. Hungry and grumpy at this point, the bus didn't even stop for us to buy some "chicolo con queso" from the ladies shouting at us at every pause. When we finally stopped at the local Juliaca airport for us to change busses, we were very relieved (especially after picking us some food at the airport). To make a long story short, we finally arrived in Puno at 5pm, 3 hours after we were supposed to. Recommadation: don't use the San Luis bus company!

Puno was ok, a little more basic and less attractive than Cusco but our hostel (Inka's Rest) was great and provided us with the opportunity to grab some much needed R&R after the last hectic few days.

The only tour that we managed was a boat trip to the floating islands in the Lake Titicaca which were built and habitated by the Uros, a pre-Inca people who have survived and kept many of their customs since that time. I can't say that we particularly enjoyed the visit as it seemed a little like a human zoo at times and there was a lot of pressure to buy some souvineers from them, but it was certainly a very different experience than anywhere else that we have visited so far.

We are back in Puno now and we found out this morning that there is a bus strike which means that we now won't be able to do our trip to the Coca Canyon as planned. So now we're going to head to Copacabana (in Boliva) a few days earlier instead.

We've had some real high and low points in Peru. The stay in the Amazon jungle is definately one of the highlights of the entire trip so far and the hike to see the ruins at Pisaq will stand out as one of my favourite days. However getting ill in Cusco and the bus trip to Puno will also be in the bottom list. We have enjoyed our time here and we are now looking forward to heading South and experiencing Bolivia and most of all, Argentina.

Milford Sound, Wanaka and Fox

"Wireless internet networks are found in this area"... we had one of those moments sat outside a cafe by Lake Matheson in the middle of Middle-Earth and this pops up on the computer as I opened it up to write this latest post. Sometimes New Zealand is so cool... At other times, like over the past couple of days when we've been out of mobile phone coverage (don't even think about internet), it's been a little less connected.

But, back to Milford Sounds and we woke up bright and early the next morning (breakfast was served from 6:50 until 7:30) to cruise down to the mouth of the fjord where it was very easy to realise why Cook missed it on both of his journeys by the sound. The entrance is truly hidden from view with a series of overlapping ranges and the rocky waves dissuaded all but the most dedicated seal-hunter from discovering the Sound. When it was discovered, it was quickly named as the most beautiful that New Zealand had to offer and rubbing the sleep from our eyes at 7:30 in the morning, we could easily see why.

The rest of the journey was the usual beautiful scenery followed by even more. The clouds had cleared and we managed to see the tops of the surrounding snow-covered mountains that we had missed the night before.

The beautiful day continued during our drive back from Milford Sounds to Queensland where we turned north to follow the coast road to Wanaka where we would stay the night before heading onward.

Wanaka
We arrived in Wanaka a little ahead of schedule and managed to check ourselves into the highly rated Wanakabakpaka hostel and went for a wander down to the bay. The weather had been so lovely today that it was very nice to stretch our legs a bit and soak in a little of the local scenery.

As the trip to our next stop (Haas) was only 3 hours long, we decided to spend the morning in Wanaka and rent a couple of bikes and see a bit of the scenery. Or so I thought. Apparently Johan's idea differed a little from mine which I should have picked up when we hired a couple of mountain bikes. It seems that Wanaka is the mountain biking capital of NZ and no trip is complete if you haven't careened down the tracks and attempted death- and gravity-defying feats. Once he realised that that wasn't going to happen with me behind the wheel, we headed for the more gentle path around Lake Wanaka and up one of the rivers flowing out of it. A very lovely trip.

After the bike ride we jumped into the car and headed out of town. It was impossible not to stop at Puzzleworld which, as it turned out, had one of the best mazes that I've been to for a while. The beautiful weather also helped.

Haas
We followed the road, stopping from time to time to do a walk or two on our way to Haas. We are both puzzled about why this town exists as it seems to have nothing more than an industry in whitebait and its convenient stop off point on your way to one of the glaciers going for itself. There is nothing else that we could find there. Puzzling...

The next morning we pushed on to the second big pull of this part of the country... the glaciers.

Fox Glacier
Not to be confused with the well known sweets... I had never (knowingly) seen a glacier before - apparently I may have skied on one in the Alps but it's hard to tell with all the snow and ice there - but that experience is completely different from when you encounter one in a forest setting in the early New Zealand summer. The pictures struggle to fully capture the colour and magnitude of this glacier and as we watched with jealously, the hikers on the top of the glacier, we looked forward to our turn tomorrow as we too ascend the Franz Joseph glacier and uncover some of the secrets of this ancient block of ice.