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.