That morning we woke up at 4am as the bus pulled into Puno on Lake Titicaca fortunately unbeknown to me would be the last early wakeup call for a while. Still in Peru we now had to wait 2hrs in a freezing bus terminal for the first bus to the Bolivian border-post just 3hrs east round on the bank of Lake Titicaca.
Mark and I were quite nervous at this point because we had had only come across info that indicated that as South Africans we would require a visa but for some reason we had it in ours heads that our visa could be bought at the border purely because we had heard that USA citizens could. Fortunately, this assumption was correct but costing us $55 each for 30 days with no option extension at this point. If only we had just spent one less day faffing and strolling around Lima and organised a cheaper longer visa in advance but hey we were just glad not to be back on a bus to Lima and relieved we were not from the USA as they were having to cough up $140 for the same pleasure.
The borders here are quite blasé no one even checks your documents and it's pretty much up to you whether or not you are going to pop into the immigration office on your way across. One foreigner only had his drivers licence on him so when he was told that he needed a passport to get a stamp he simply walked out the office and across the border unhindered.
Now that we were in Bolivia Ross and I parted ways with Mark. Ross and I headed off to Isla del Sol all psyched for our pending trans party, after having missed the first boat as we had not yet adjusted our watches for the time change, and Mark stayed on the mainland later heading up to Lima to collect Kieren from the airport in La Paz.
Lake Titicaca is huge (surface area of 8372km2 compared with the Vaal at 320km2 and Lake Windermere at 14.7km2) and Isla del Sol is nowhere near being in the middle of it but it still took us 1.5hrs to get to it by 'speed' boat. Don't let the 'Sol' part of the name meaning Sun fool you into thinking this is a warm place though let me remind you it's mid winter and this lake is close on 4000m above sea level (compared to Johannesburg at 2000m and Ben Nevis UK's highest peak at 1344m)so when the wind blows across the water it is brrrr cold!
By the time we got to the north side of the island we were exhausted from the now 17hr journey, altitude and freezing cold so there was not much chance of us making much of an appearance at the trans 'party' that was just kicking off on the main 'beach'. Trans party, some of you may ask, well really it was just a bunch of hippy looking people(like maybe 15 at max)jumping around on a patch of grass in the middle of a beach in broad daylight to what sounded to me like really really bad rave music high on something way stronger than your average gin and tonic!
Judging by what we had seen the evening before of the exciting trans 'party' Ross and I made no effort to rush out of bed from under our 3 layers of cosy Alpaca blankets the next morning. In fact, we only crawled out of bed at around 3pm purely out of a necessity to eat at least one meal that day and of course enjoy a beer while watching the sunset from the top of the hill. We didn't do much better the following 2 days encouraged by a bout of sleet and rain.
On our 3rd day on the island I finally finished my book, Inca Cola, a book Ross had given me for my birthday in Feb. I was glad I had only got round to reading it now because it was authored by an English politician who had traveled Peru in the late 80's so I had plenty of experience to now truly understand and appreciate not only the book but also how far Peru has come. There is even a section in the book where the author comes across a few South African travellers made interesting because Peru was one of the few South American countries left that would grant South Africans entry at that time. I could ramble on for hours about the politics but let me just say reading about the interaction between an English politician and an Afrikaaner at this time in South Africans' history makes for an interesting analysis.
After I finishing my book feeling absolutely revitalized from 3 days of good rest we waved goodbye to the hippies who were now begging to make their way home and ourselves headed off on a 2.5hr hike to the south side of the island. Halfway a long our hike a little troll jumped out from behind a rock (not really a troll actually just an annoying Bolivian) and demanded we pay for using the foot path, fair enough it was only the equivalent of $0.50 but it is the principal if you are going to charge someone at least warn them in advance of the charge. This was not to be the last troll we would encounter on the island in fact it turned out they were all over the place popping out at every opportunity. I don't mind paying to visit a place but really these trolls s began to anger the tourists-they should just charge an entrance fee to the island and be done with it.
Day 54: Kieren arrives with treats from the motherland!
Ross and I then spent a night on the north side meeting Kieren and Mark early the next morning. They were greeted by beautiful sunny skies and of course another freaking troll demanding an arrival fee. By this stage I just began warning arriving tourists not to stress about the fee as these trolls were everywhere on the island to which I got a few odd looks but they were soon to find out what I was on about.
Anyway, so it was great to see Mark and Kieren and we were so busy catching up that we hardly noticed the long steep oxygen deprived climb to the top of the hill where we would be staying. Kieren even had a goody bag full of supplies from the motherland: African shirts, gel cycling gloves, delicious sweets and most exciting of all moola from Kerry and Nick only to be spent on a posh meal in La Paz!
The next day or so were great just going for walks in the sun, playing games and of course chilling.
Day 55: We head to the city built on a mountain slope, La Paz
Today we went back to the mainland and headed to La Paz by bus stopping halfway to cross part of the lake by boat while our bus floated along next to us on a rickety barge, don't ask me why they haven't built a bridge but hey it certainly breaks up the journey.
Tomorrow we plan to book a trip to the salt pans and another to the jungle after which we'll hopefully be sitting down to enjoy some of best food La Paz has to offer - thanks again!
Pics can be seen here again mostly courtesy of Ross as my 5 year old camera is not a big fan of the cold!
Loving the updates! Enjoy dinner and have a toast for us cos we miss you all!
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