Please let me out of Bolivia!!!

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We're now in Peru. Thank god. They nearly didnt let me leave Bolivia...i'll get to that in a minute but first an update on our last few days in 'lovely' Bolivia (i only write that with muted sarcasm becasue Bolivia has really pissed me off in the last 24 hours, i love it really!!)
So we ended up getting delayed in our Amazon oasis, Rurrenabaque for another day as we were rained in meaning no planes could fly. By the end of our week there we were getting a bit fidgety and as everyones stomachs had turned to sludge we were depsertae to get back to La Paz for a Burger King to try and sort things out (you know things are bad when you turn to BK to save the day)
We had quite the eclectic mix of people to hang with in Rurrenabaque which made things interesting. A doctor, 2 nurses (Jess included) 2 lawyers who had just graduated law school from London, one German who beleive it or not, could be Boris Becker from behind (sorry Christof, but its true) and a dude called Alex who lived in Islington and so provided Nat and I with hours of chit chat about all the lovely N1 places we cant wait to get back to. Then there was me, the meed-ya boy, Nat the fashionista and Jack, the jack of all trades who seems to know something about everything, which is handy. So there you have it, a good mix of people, some enlgihtening and hilarious conversation and lots of card games and running to the toilet.
When we finnaly made it back to La Paz in our light aricraft, we all went straight to Burger King, smashed a Whopper and went to bed for a siesta. In the evening we decided to go for a curry. Yes, thats right, a curry. Now this is where my love for food completely rules any logic in my brain telling me otherwise. Not only are we all suffering from chronic gastro, we are also boarding a 4 hours bus tomorrow north to the border, so scoffing a Madras and washing it down with 4 pints of Bolivian Pilsner probably wasnt the best thing for us all to do.....it wasnt. Lets just say this, post curry, pre bus ride, i reckon the four of us must have gone to the toilet over 10 times each in the night, it got to the point where we didnt even bother shutting or locking our dorm room as we knew it would be only a few minutes before the next landlside was due.

So the next day we were headed to Lake Titicaca which is one of the worlds highest navigable stretches of fresh water, and its is f***** huge. It is like an ocean, not a lake. I think it is 175km, 0r 75km long and 60km wide. Put it this way, you can only just see from one side to the other and it took us an hour and half by boat to get to an island in the middle of it. So yes, its big, really big.
After a but clenching 3 hour bus ride from La Paz wea rrived at the lake. At this point, the bus had to drive onto a big raft of sorts and transport the bus 10 minutes across the lake so we could continue the drive for another hour to Copacabana, the town on the Bolivian side where we were due to stay for a few nights. Would seem like a simple enough procedure...it wasnt!! When the bus arrived at the lake, waiting to board the raft/ferry, a short boxy Bolivian woman with a face like a pit bull and plaits down to her arse started barking something at me in Spanish, something about a ticket and basically summoning me off the bus. OK, chill lady i was saying, im obviously not spanish so stop shouting at me! Anyway, Jack and i gussed we needed to buy tickets in order to get over the lake so we jumped off the bus, leaving the girls on board. We had been gone no more than 2 minutes to get the 1 Boliviano tickets and when we came back to get on the bus, it had gone, nowhere to be seen. Jack and i, gobsmacked, looking around could not see it ANYWHERE! there was no way in the time we had gone it could have got onto the lake we thought, we had been gone 2 minutes! As panick kicked in, horrible thoughts of Nat and Jess having been kidnapped or driven away somewhere esle kicked in we looked out onto the lake and saw tow sets of flailing arms waving at us, mid lake from our bus, on the lake!!!! The bastard driver and his pitbull lady had gone without us taking our girlfriends with them!!! Jack and I just stood there, staring, asking the raft men in our best spanish how we were supposed to catch it up, swim?!! It all soon came to light when two french chicks explained to us that EVERYONE was supposed to get off the bus, buy a ticket and take a sppedboat across the lake and then meet your bus on the other side, so the buses didnt have to board the rafts with passengers in. So all Jack and i had to do was queue for a speedboat and we were on the other side in less than 10 minutes. Another fine example of the Bolivian tourism structure. Hollar a load of Spanish at said toursit, point, shout 'Boliviano, ticket, grrrr' and then drive off!
Anyway, we all wet oursleves laughing when we were reunited, the image of Nat and Jess on the lake, bobbing up and down on this massive raft trying to stick their bodies out of the window to catch our attention still makes me chuckle, i can just imagine Nats face as the bus drove off!!! Bless her.

So, we arrived in Copacabana, a small very relaxing town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. On the other side of the lake is Peru, but the Bolivian side is much nicer. I had the most amazing fresh 'Trucha' (trout) from the lake, we took long walks, went kayaking, hired funny looking peddle-o's that were shaped like swans and watched some of the most amazong sunsets (yes i know, i say i have seen the most amazing sunset in every blog but these were unreal) On our second day there we took a boat to Isla da Sol which means ISland of the Sun. This is where the Inca legend of The Sun was created so its a pretty significant place, as well as astoundingly beautiful. The girls took the boat to the south of the island to find some accomodation and Jack and i carried on to the north of the island on the boat and trekked 3 hours back to the south to meet the girls. It was a great trek, stopping at some amazing Inca ruins on the way and taking pics of some of the most epic landscaped i had ever seen over the lake. Think lake district, mixed with New Zealand, mixed with rainforest and you kind of have an image. My pics do it justice, thank god. The island is very quiet but bustling with Bolivian women directing donkeys up and down its steep hills carrying supplies from the boats to the varuious hole in the wall restaurants and tiny stalls selling water and chocolate. It Isla del Soul at night was also amazingly quiet, exepct for the astronomical sound of what sounded like two donkeys getting it on or suffering from the same stomach gripes as us. Incredible grunting! Impressive infact!
So, back to the mainland and time to leave for Peru. Easy peasy, 10 minutes to the Peru border, cross the border, then 6 hours drive by luxury bus to Cusco, the town where we are now. That was the plan and that is NOT how it went.
So we arrived at the Bolivian border to get our exit stamps. Overland border crossing are somewhat tedious. You queue for ages to get out of a place, then walk about 100 yards through no mans land to the next country and queue again to get into the next place, this time being Peru. As we are queing to get our exit stamps, an immigration officer is walking down the line checking for everyones Bolivian ENTRY stamp. F**k F**k F**k i am thinking. I remembered when we corssed the border from Argentina into Bolivia, only AFTER we had left the border that for some reason, the Bolivian immigration dude stmaped my visa but not my passport, yet he did everyone elses. No drama i thought, i have the stamp on my visa papers which should be fine. It wasnt.
As he got to Nat and summoned her forward to get her exit stamp, he flicked through mine about 5 times and just looked up at me asking where it was. I tried to explain how at Villazon, the town we entered in that YOUR immigration people didnt stamp it, not my fault. He just looked up at me and said 'Amigo, this is a probelm for you, you cannot leave Bolivia.' Well, if i had had a loose stomach for the last week, it was definitely going to come out on the floor in front of him right there, i absolutely shit myself, almost literally. OK, calm i thought, this is fine. To cut a long, and very stressful story short, he explained that i had to pay them to let me out of the country, meaning i had to basically pay them to stamp me in and then out again. But....i didnt have any money, just my visa card. At this point, our bus driver and the other 50 people on our bus had cleared Bolivian and Peruvian customs and were waiting for me. The driver was saying 'Cinco minutos and we leave without you'. Shit, OK, cool, give me some f****g money and to pay these bastards and i will be with you. But the only place to get money was back in La Paz....5 hours away. Nat and I had spent out last 20 Bolivianos on two bowls of tomato soup the nigh before, thinking we wouldnt need anymoney until we got to Peru. Duh.
At this point, two Essex lads came to my rescue (i will never bag out Essex again!!) and gave me 30 USD to get my stamp. So in the space of 5 minutes i hae to run into Peru, get the money from the lads off the bus, run back into Bolivia, get my stamp, pay the dollars, run back into Peru, get my entry stamp and then board the bus.
It was then a 6 hour journey to Cusco and to make it worse, we were told, and had booked a luxury 'tourismo' coach as we had to make sure it had a toilet as both girls were still a bit active down below but they ripped us off and put us on a local bus, with no toilet and half of Peru and its kids on board. So suffice to say, yesterday was the worst f*****g day travelling so far! But to make it all good, Cusco is by far one of the most amazing cities we have been to yet and this morning, for the first time in 9 weeks, we had a full english and PROPER flat white coffee!! So it was worth all the hassle to get here!
Sorry for all the f's in thsi e mail but its the only way to get my anger at immigration and panic across, if you had been there you would have heard alot worse!!

x

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