46. 28-30th March. Copacabana and Bolivia having the last laugh!

---

28/03/09

Mike and I were at the bus station by 7.30am to catch a bus to Copacabana and luckily both of us were feeling well. The first time for quite a while. One girl wasn't so lucky. She was throwing up in the bin just next to the parked bus. I think La Paz takes a lot of victims!ha We were the last ones on the bus and Mike ended up getting a broken seat. Not only that but we were sat about two seats back from the girl who was being sick so we were continuosley praying that she wasn't going to be sick out of the window. It was that hot you couldn't close your window so the worry of spray was always on the back of our minds!ha I was sat on the isle seat next to a lovely couple. Grant from OZ and Gwen from Brazil. We spent the whole three hours talking and within that short period of time i felt i had known them for years. We had to do a ferry crossing half way through the journey and seing our bus on a small boat crossing the river, we all thought that was going to be the last we ever saw our backpacks!ha On our little speed boat we got to see a naval ship...which is kind of wierd as Bolivia has no coast!ha Oh yeah, our captain was about 12 years old as well!ha Back on the bus on the other side we started to leave when myself and another lad realsed two of the girls from Denmark were missing. We stopped the bus and ran out looking for them. We found them sitting down munching on some food. They owed us big time!ha Before we got to Copacabana Mike and I were argueing over something silly. I think it was over the towel that i claimed back in Uyuni when all our laundrey got stolen. The towel that Mike bought in La Paz was awful!ha We must have been talking quite loud as the whole bus agreed we sounded like a married couple. That started another arguement about who would be the woman in the relationship!ha Our new friends Grant and Gwen, were not staying in Copacabana and within the short period of time we were parked there, Gwens bag got stolen from the bus! It had her laptop in it as well. Mike and I promised her we would keep an eye out for her as we said our goodbyes. Copacabana from the very start had such a relaxed feeling about it. Just like a beach town...which it sort of is anyway. We walked down the main street towards the lake passing all the awesome jewelry stalls and restaurants along the way. The beach itself is ruined by all the cheap looking flamingo boats but the setting was beautiful. We found a local restaurant on the beach and had a good cheap fish lunch. After that we found a bar that was showing the England v Slovakia game which we won 4-0. Since we hadn't drunk for a while we both felt tipsy after just two beers each!ha We had a power nap before heading out for dinner. A buffet salad for starters followed up by lasagne washed down with a glass of wine. Now thats what the doctor ordered! The place was dead though so we were back in our room by 11pm. We did have a bloke walk into our room thinking it was his so after that we locked the door before going to sleep. Bolivia had given us enough suprises so we didn't want any more!ha



29/03/09

I should have really learnt by now to ask for what is served for the free breakfast! We woke up in time for it and it was bread and jam...great! We gave that a miss, bought a load of fruit and even found some protien shakes. Both feeling on top of the world we had an hour workout. The first one in a while! As we were leaving the country the next day we decided to use up the remaining of our currency on jewelry. We bought loads of it! Even though Mike is a 'wee man' (my nick name for him) he can haggle prices down well! We read that the view from the mountian towering over the little town was an awesome one especially for sunset. So we head off in plenty of time but once again the altitude was a killer. Once at the top i was suprised by two things. The first was the amount of religious monuments and the second, a very strange man sat down talking to himself! Mike and I sat there for about an hour waiting for sunset and the view was amazing. We both agreed it brought back memories of when we both first met in Fiji and we done the exact same thing there on a small island. The sunset was awesome but we soon realised that we hadn't learnt our lesson from our time in Fiji. In Fiji we didn't bring a torch and got lost in the forrest making our way back in the pitch black!ha Once again, we didn't bring a torch so we quickly ran down the mountian before it got to dark to see. We had a three course dinner for 15b which is about £2! I got an email from Gwen saying that beofre they left Copacabana she offered a cash reward for her bag and managed to gt it back before their bus left! So that was awesome news. After buying our bus ticket we were left with 1.50b between us. So we really cut it close with our money. The Lonely Planets states that there is a working ATM in this small town. What it doesn't say is that it only works on a Wednesday (i think).



30/03/09

So we were finally leaving Bolivia and heading to Cusco from where we were going to do the Inca Trail. We had to be in Cusco for the 1st of April so we had planned it perfectly. Bolivia could throw us no more suprises...or so we thought. We got to the the first border check to find out that the small town that seperates the two borders have put up a blockade. The bus couldn't go though. There was about twenty travelers on the bus and the driver was telling us that we could try and walk to the other border and get a bus to Cusco on the other side but there was a slight problem. The walk was about 12km and he told us that it was far to dangerous. We would have got mugged for sure. Even with safety in numbers we all agreed it would have been stupid to risk it. Safety in numbers doesn't really work when there could be guns involved!ha Plus Mike and I and no money at all so we had to go back and get our money back. We did exactly that and decided with a few others that the best bet would be to get the first bus back to La Paz...the city we loved?!ha Atleast there we would have more options which was vital for Mike and I. We couldnt miss the Inca Trail! We got on a bus straight away and we both laughed about the fact we were heading back to the city we couldn't wait to leave and swore we would never go back to! We got to La Paz by around 2pm and we found a bus company that was going to Cusco at 5pm. They told us that the border crossing they used was still open. We were not convinced but we had no options, we had to take their word for it. In the bus terminal we met a bloke who looked and dressed like Santa! This old boy who told me he has the world record for the most amount of hitchhikes. A very strange man! When i told him about our border dilema he told me that he could handle himself and would have walked it. I just looked at him with his walking stick and nodded in argreement. So we all got on the bus and had a laugh talking about the day we just had. We had to change bus at Puno but only one girl had the right currency so she paid for everyones departure tax. It was night time and we were getting as lot of strange looks and you could see people wieghing up our bags. Luckily our bus was leaving straight away and i got to my seat to find a young kid playng al over it. I decided to sit next to Mike till it got busier and it did very quickly! I jumped back onto my designated seat once the kid decided he had enough fun with my seat. Later on in the night we had policemen come on the bus they searched the ladies behind us with all the kids. And when i say search i mean search. They had flashlights up their skirts, under their seats, going through all their bags so they knew something we didn't. It wasn't as if they were attractive ladies either, they were big scarey looking women! Anyway, after a very long and adventurous journey we finally arrived in Cusco by 4am.



So we finally managed to leave Bolivia. Would i tell someone not to go to Bolivia, no chance. We done some great things in Bolivia and it provided us with memories and stories that will last us forever. I would tell people to take plenty of anti sickness tablets though!ha

---

Photos

Doing some serious thinking waiting for the sunset.
Like, shouldnt we have learnt from Fiji to bring a torch?!