To Puno and beyond

Trip Start Nov 18, 2008

Trip End Nov 17, 2009

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Where I stayed

Hospedaje virgen de copacabana

(Puno hotels)

Flag of Peru Puno, Peru
Tuesday, January 13, 2009

So with one of the big ticks behind us we were now thinking about heading south. With lake Titicaca in mind we booked ourselves a bus to Puno which lies on the shores of the lake. The Gringo filled bus took about five or six hours with the obligatory stop off at view point with lots of people selling "baby alpaca" and other touristy merchandise. We arrived into Puno late in the afternoon. It was a grey day and the lake looked pretty dreich. The accommodation was relatively cheap. The main tourist strip had plenty of fancy looking restaurants to try. We relaxed for the rest of the day saving the lake trip till tomorrow. That night we tried the Alpaca meat as it was supposed to be pretty good- it was.
Next day although wet we headed for the dock to find a boat to the famous reed islands. This was pretty easy to do though the weather looked terrible. We were the only English speakers on the boat so this gave us a good chance to practice our Spanish. The islands were really cool though Fiona noticed that there were at least twice as many as there had been last time she was there. We were shown around several islands with plenty of opportunity to buy touristy trinkets. We also got a ride in the authentic reed boats, along with all the other tourists. We headed back in to Puno after the islands. As you come back into the dock you can see the Yavari which was transported from the UK and carried up to the lake then re assembled which is pretty impressive as it was done before motorised transport.
Back in town we had a plan to get to Bolivia by night fall. First we needed to send a package home. This was more tricky than it sounds. First of all we needed it to be under a certain weight to make it a reasonable price so we had to omit a few things. Then came a real "computer says no" moment. The lady at the desk could not find the UK on the computer as a destination so asked us if Holland would be ok!!! After about ten minutes of trying we took control of the computer and fixed the problem.
Now all we had to do was get to the border before it closed at seven and we had three and three quarter hours to do it in. It should be fine.....
We jumped on a cramped local bus that would take us to the border town. This chugged along at a slow rate but was going fast enough. Then on one of the long Andean hills we had to stop at the top. The bus had overheated and so we had to wait for it to cool down. so we waited while the locals made jokes about heavy gringo�s even though they were fatter than us. We waited some more. Then finally we were going again. Time was getting tight. We pulled into the border town with fifteen minutes to go, so quickly we jumped onto a rickshaw then vamos to the border. The rickshaw driver was cycling hard dodging pedestrians and carts then dumps us infront of the first of the three offices we have to visit to get into Bolivia. Eventually after some frantic paperwork we were dumped in Bolivia with a taxi to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world.