Checked out of the hostel and had some breakfast in town. Had a couple of hours to kill before getting the bus so had a wander along the shore of the lake. Lots of garbage but it’s quite pretty along the shoreline.

Bus trip was about 4 hours broken by a ferry trip across part of the lake. The passengers all went in little motor boats but the bus was put on a tiny barge which looked worryingly top heavy.
It got to the other side without capsizing though and we continued our journey.
Leaving Copacabana we had travelled over some high mountains but now we were back on the flat Altiplano which continued with incredible snow topped mountains in the not so far distance until we reached the outlying suburbs of La Paz.
La Paz itself is down off the Altiplano so it was quite spectacular when the road suddenly plunged down the side of a previously unseen valley to reveal the city below.

We stayed a couple of nights in Laz Paz. We both were feeling a little sick (I think our breakfast juice in Copacabana might have been mixed with tap-water) so didn’t see much of the city yet. We were staying near the “Witches Market” which was a street with stalls selling all kinds of herbal remedies and potions and trinkets including dried Llama fetuses which are supposedly good luck.
There are also many Guitar shops and we bought one for Sarah as she has been missing playing. (It’s her Birthday on the 18th) It’s a little smaller than full sized and weighs almost nothing so shouldn’t be too inconvenient to carry.

Another early rise and we headed off across the island. The return boat was at 1.30pm and we had an 8 kilometre walk to the north end of the island and then return to the village of Cha’llapampa for the boat.
A kilometre along the path we came to another ticket booth and a man tried to sell us two tickets each. One for visiting the Temple of The Sun ruins (10Bs) which we were planning to walk to and another (5Bs) which I think was for the north part of the island but was covered by the ruin ticket anyway. I think he was just trying to rip us off so we paid for the ruin tickets and were on our way.
The walk was quite easy for the most part but had a few steep bits up hills. We were attacked by some kind of Plover at one stage.
After a couple of hours we reached the northern end of the island and explored the Chincana ruins which were quite interesting. Lots of little rooms and tunnels running between them.
Nearby was Titicaca Rock/Rock of the Puma which according to Inca mythology is the birthplace of the Sun God Viracocha and the first Incas Manco Capac and Mama Huaca. I expected the rock to be carved or something but it was simply a small overhang. On the walk back to Ch’allapamapa we stopped at the ‘ruins’ of The Temple of the Sun which was a nice high peak with views of the sunrise and sunset over the lake but no ruins! Not sure what happened there, they are marked on all the maps and they don’t mention that there is no actual ruins to see. The Spanish were pretty keen on destroying any kind of sun-worshiping temples as being blasphemous so they might have had a go at this one.
We arrived at Ch’allapampa with a couple of hours to kill before the boat left. The town was not as nice as Yumani as it was at lake level, built on and around an isthmus and was very sandy and hot. The beaches were not that clean with weed and pigs all over although the water did look inviting. A few backpackers were sunbaking in bikinis while waiting for the boat. We had some lunch and enquired about boat tickets. There were two boats leaving at 1.30pm and both would be stopping at the south end for an hour before returning to Copacabana via the crappy fake floating islands at 5pm! We didn’t fancy taking that long to get back and sitting around doing nothing for an extra hour on the boat. Luckily we found another boat operator who was charging the same fee (20Bs) for a direct trip which would only take 2 hours. We got back to Copacabana at 3.40pm feeling quite tired but happy with our achievement having walked 13km yesterday and another 12 today. On the way back to our hostel we stopped at a ticket agent and picked up bus tickets for Las Paz leaving 1.30pm tomorrow.
We gave Copacabana Coffee House another chance that evening ordering a couple of hot chocolates. They had strange names on the menu and I did check with the waitress that they were chocolat calientes (hot chocolate) before I ordered but mine turned up as an Iced Chocolate with mostly chocolate icecream and Sarah’s was a luke-warm chocolate drink made with what tasted like cooking chocolate. Such a shame because the first coffee we got there was quite good.

Isla Del Sol (Island of the Sun)

Woke up early and packed our bags to head for Isla Del Sol. We were able to leave our Packs at the hostel so just had day packs for the walk. You can take boats direct from Copacabana but we thought it would be more fun to walk 17 km along the lake shore to Yampupata and get a boat across from there.
We arrived at Copacabana Coffee House for our morning Coffee at 7.40am to find the guy who told us they opened at 7am mopping the front tiles. We went to walk inside and he yelled at us to not walk on the tiles. “Are you open?” We asked. “10 minutes” he replied. So we went elsewhere for our Coffee.

The walk out of town was initially through paddocks along the lakeside and through a couple of villages before climbing inland through Eucalyptus forest. We collected a small dog a couple of km from town who we named Foxy because he was fairly slinky when he ran. After crossing a fairly high ridge (*puff puff*) we descended back to the lake and passed another village with some fake Islas Flotantes, floating reed islands like are found on the Peru side of Lake Titicaca. However, people don’t live like that in Bolivia so these were the Disney version purely as a tourist trap. I think most of the boats coming back from Isla Del Sol stop there and we were harassed by three separate people from the village to come and see them.
Walking on having gone about 13 km we were greeted by Hilario Paye who features in Lonely Planet and is described as “a colourful character who will happily take you on a ride on his puma-headed reed boat, or for a trip in his motorboat”. Along with a couple of American backpackers who were there, we opted for the motorboat to Isla Del Sol option. Foxy, who had followed us for the last 10km sadly sat on the end of the dock as we pulled out. The boat was quite small and although enclosed there was only glass in 2 of the 6 windows so we got a little splashed on the half hour trip to the island.
Arriving at a small dock on the south end of the island we alighted and waved goodbye to Hilario hoping he would make it home ok as his outboard motor had stopped 3 times in the last 10 minutes.
A small boy hit us up for 5 Bolivianos ($1 AUD) each as we left the dock which is a fee for visiting the South End of the Island. We passed some uninspiring Inca Ruins which we barely glanced at as we were keen to get to accommodation and find somewhere for lunch. It was another couple of kilometres walk up the hill and along the ridge to Yumani which is the largest town on the island. It is quite high on the hillside and top of the ridge so most places have a great view out over the lake. We chose a place just over the ridge which had an uninterrupted view all the way back to Peru. We checked in and went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Two small boys who were playing inside when we arrived came over after a few minutes and took our order. Was amusing to watch them fetch our large beer out of the fridge and discuss the best way to open it. We were wondering if they were going to cook our meals as well but they fetched mum from across the road for that.
Following a welcome afternoon nap we climbed the nearby hill (4068m) to watch the sunset. There was a small group of people doing the same thing along with a local woman armed with a Llama which she was pestering people to take photos of. (for a fee of course) When she didn’t have willing customers she started dragging the poor Llama into the background as people lined up their photo shots.
The sunset was magnificent and we watched the last of it from the hostel balcony.

We were happy to not have to set the alarm clock so woke up quite a bit later than planned at 11am. Guess we will be staying a second night at this hostel!
Had a walk around town and got some breakfast and a Coffee at Copacabana Coffee House. Great Coffee but lousy service. We asked what time they opened (7am) so we could come back early the next morning.
There is a prominent hill on the north side of town which has a great view from the top so we went for a climb. The hill is only 166 metres high but when the town is at 3800m it still takes a while to slowly gasp your way to the top!
The views were fantastic. We were overlooking the whole town and across Titicaca lake and had a good view of Isla Del Sol where we are planning to go tomorrow.
Going up the hill we passed lots of large crosses and the top of the hill is covered in little shrines where people can make offerings and further along the hill is a large number of stalls selling minature vehicles, cars, houses and money which you can purchase to take a little way down the hill with the beer, flower petals, confetti etc you purchased from the other stalls to pray that these items will come to you in the following year. We bought 1 Million Dollars! In a little case for Sarah’s brother Beau who collects notes from around the world. I wanted to go and bless it with the beer spraying pilgrims but Sarah wouldn’t let me. Sorry Beau.


Bolivia Facebook album link

Got picked up at the hostel at 9am by mini bus for a tour to the floating islands of Lake Titicaca. It was a fairly short boat ride out on the lake to a huge area of reeds with the community of Uros which was made up of many islands made from reed mats with from 5 to 40 families living on each with a total of about 1200 people. We stopped on one of the islands and were given a display of how the islands were made and then the stalls came out and the women offered weavings and jewellery for many times the amount they would have sold for on the mainland. This particular island was quite small with 5 families. It smelled like rotting reeds and was quite squishy in parts where the reeds were level with the water-line. Quite amazing to see how they have lived that way for generations. There were some modern things like I saw a few solar panels on some of the islands and larger islands had buildings with corrugated iron roofs. Some painted yellow to better fit in with the thatched huts. We stopped on the main island on the way back and they had a restaurant, general store and even a “hotel”, three very basic rooms you could pay a ridiculous amount to stay the night in. (The insects would eat you alive!)

Back in town we had time for lunch before catching a bus to Bolivia. It was a three hour trip to Copacabana (no, not the one from the song…) on the Bolivian side of the lake. We filled in our customs forms for Bolivia and listened to the lone American on the bus whinge loudly about how she didn’t know she needed a Visa for Bolivia and how unfair it was she had to pay $135USD for it when no one told her and would she have time to get it at the border etc etc. The USA started making it hard for Bolivians to get US Visas a year or so ago because the Bolivian Government wasn’t doing enough to stop farmers growing Coca. So the Bolivians simply reciprocated and US citizens have to jump through the same hoops coming to Bolivia.

At the border we hopped off the bus and took our bags through the police station to get the police cards we were given on arriving stamped that we were leaving Peru, then next door to the customs to get our passports stamped as leaving Peru. After a 300 metre walk up a hill across the border we then needed to wait for half an hour for the sole officer processing all the incoming and outgoing people. Only took a second for him to stamp the passports when we got to the desk. Didn’t even look at our passport photos, just the Peru exit stamp and our transit card.

Outside we once again hopped on the bus for a short trip to Copacabana where we found a Hostel up a dark street in the rain. (After consulting our trusty Lonely Planet of course.)


Peru Photo Album link

Happy New Year!

New Years Day. Had a very lazy day sleeping in and staying in the hotel room watching TV for pretty much the whole day! Sarah sent me out to get some lunch about 2pm and I turned right out the front of the hotel to go to a Chicken shop half a block up the street.
It had the doors open but grill closed so didn’t seem open yet but had chickens on spits waiting to go in the grill, possibly the same ones that we had seen there the night before!
I walked on down the main tourist drag and there were very few shops open. Just a few restaurants which didn’t do take away. Walked back to the hostel around the market and found an open and very busy chicken shop two doors from the hostel.
I should have turned left out the door.

Woke to the alarm at 5.30am and finished packing our bags before having breakfast and checking out at 7am. We had booked our bus through VIP Travel Service and Elena had been very helpful and had arranged for us to be collected at the hostel at 7am to be taken to the bus station for a 7.30 departure.
Until 7.10am I wasn’t concerned as most things run on “Peru Time” but when no one had arrived by 7.15am I was starting to worry about making the bus. The man on the front desk tried to ring the agency but couldn’t get hold of anyone ( I was a bit surprised that Damian was getting worried about missing the bus. I felt like saying “Damian haven’t you learnt anything about patience since we have been travelling, I mean the bus would not leave with out us -Sarah) so I rang the bus company and gave them our names and was told they had no record of us on the bus (which was due to leave in about 2 minutes.) I told him we were on our way and we flagged down a taxi to take us to the bus office. There we showed the “receipt” the agency lady had given us and after a few hasty phone calls including to the bus which was currently heading out of town we jumped in another taxi for a mad dash to catch the bus.
Safely aboard we vowed to purchase bus tickets directly from the bus companies as we had been in the past because for the $10USD Elena had charged us for commission she seemed to have done absolutely nothing! And while missing the bus to Puno would not have been a total disaster, we would have been charged for a nights accommodation we booked in Puno and probably would have had to sleep on the streets in Cuzco as everywhere was booked out for New Years Eve.
VIP Travel Service has a nasty email coming their way tonight.

After the brief morning drama, the bus trip was very pleasant. Our first stop was in a small town at a rather tired looking church called the “Sistine Chapel of America” which had some pretty religious murals on the walls and roof and very impressive looking gold plated and solid silver altar.

Second stop was the ruins of an Inca City which was a trading post between Cuzco and southern cities in Bolivia and Argentina. The walls were built with stone and adobe so not much of the mud brick was remaining but the field of remains of the 120 food silos that were once there was impressive as was the central wall of a once massive 14 metre high temple.

Third stop was a lunch break at a restaurant where we had a delicious buffet lunch looking out at a grazing Llama and over the fields to snow capped mountains.

Fourth stop was at the highest point on the road to Puno at 4330 metres ASL. Very pretty mountain vista with a few stalls selling the usual trinkets and some children posing in costume with Llamas for money.

Fifth stop was in a small town to visit a museum with artifacts from some nearby ruins which would have been more interesting than the museum.

The last couple of hours were driving across the “Altiplano” which is a high altitude plane between a couple of the Andes ranges. No trees at all and lots of small communities of farmswith herds of Cows, Sheep, Llamas and Alpacas. High mountains in the distance, some with snow on top.

The last city we passed through before Puno was the city of Juliaca. I think it must have been our guide’s home town because he was raving about how wonderful the place was the whole time we drove through. He pointed out the “international airport” as we passed and mentioned it twice more. (Big deal, so it has twice daily, 1 hour flights to La Paz in Bolivia?) The town wasn’t too different from other towns we had been through. Dry and dusty looking with no parks or vegetation apparent. But the guide kept on. “We have the black market and the smuggling from Bolivia so the city is growing. Is more cheap than other places in Peru.” He also was quite proud of the 25000 taxi-chulos the city had which were bicycle tuk-tuks.

After Juliaca we got our first look at Lake Titacaca before arriving in Puno. From the bus station we took a taxi through town to the Hostel. It was a really nice room with private bathroom and the best shower since Ecuador. After we booked in we walked into the middle of town to get some dinner. Heaps of people around being NYE but very few tourists. We had a nice pizza for dinner in a restaurant with a fish tank with tiny turtles swimming around. Went back to our hotel room and had a few (or more!) drinks while watching cable TV and chatting with friends on Skype and listening to the fireworks being let off in the street below. Had a good chat with Jasper and Jeanie who were sweltering in 35 degree heat back in Sydney. Puno is at 3900 metres ASL so gets pretty cold at night!