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Published: November 24th 2006
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Elvis, Candice and Charly.
... all happy in the beginning of the bus ride... Well, as is normal with time, it manages to just disappear without you even noticing it- 3 months have just flown by right before my eyes. It was amazing to check my Peruvian tourist card and realise that I had to make another dash to the border before the immigration police came hunting me down. Okay, well, actually, I don’t think those police actually exist, but it’s a US$20 fine for every day you stay in the country after your card expires: quite a hefty fine if you let the days accumulate.
After the disastrous trip to the Chilean border last time, we opted to make for the Perú-Bolivia border, officially an 8-9 hour bus ride from Cusco: which was nothing at all in comparison to the torturous Cusco to Chile bus ride.
Elvis quite surprisingly managed to get the Saturday off work, so what was originally going to be a dash to the border had the potential of turning into a romantic weekend away.
Catching the Friday night bus I slept a lot of the way (I think that had something to do with the incredibly drowsy making travel sickness pills I had invested in) I woke only a few
Elvis and Candice
Eating empanadas at the Bolivian border. times in a cold sweat gripping onto the arm rests for dear life as wisps of bus falling off the cliff nightmares floated away. (If you saw the amount of bus accidents they have here and the number of buses pulled out of rivers after falling off mountains, then I am sure you wouldn’t be dreaming in a fluffy white cloud of sleep either.)
Around four o’clock I woke to the remnant sounds of shattering glass and the squeals of breaks, dismissing it as just another scary dream, I went back to sleep only to be woken up half an hour later and finding out that we actually did crash, the bus was broken and we weren’t going anywhere.
Ahhh… you gotta love Perú, but thankfully, being completely accustomed to the daily trials and tribulations that Perú presents I was completely unfazed by the whole thing; unlike a few tourists (nationality remaining anonymous, but it’s a nationality famous for breeding wankers) who were jumping up and down and causing a huge great fuss for the poor bus stewardess. In all the chaos I lost track of Elvis until he was pulling my arm whispering that there was a small
bus waiting to take a few the rest of the way.
Ahhh… my fantastic Elvis, he really knows his stuff and his Peruvian pushiness really comes into action when needs be and before I knew it, I was on the new bus watching all the tourists as they were left behind far in the distance.
Border crossing was easy and far less systematic and official than Chile, there was far less living contrasts, the houses looked the same, the women still wore their big colourful skirts and funny hats; the local buses were still overfull both with humans and animals. Yep, life here was on par with Perú.
The Bolivian border town: Copacabana is this lush, slow paced beach town. Only, there is no ocean- just one huge lake: Lake Titicaca- the highest lake in the world. Copacabana has a beautiful lake side esplanade with dozens of outdoor restaurants with daily specials of fresh fish.
We found a nice cheap, clean hostel up on a hill overlooking the lake and in the holiday mood we were both in the Hostel’s manager managed to up sell his boat trip to some of the local islands of the Lake.
It was a beautiful relaxing boat ride to the beautiful Sun Island. Being quite lazy we just sat on the shore and ate fish, laying in the green grass.
Being the party animals that we both are, we were both in bed at eight feasting on a picnic of Kit Kats (which aren’t heard of in Cusco) and sipping glasses of tinned milk…
Waiting for the bus the next day we spent the morning by the lake side, skipping rocks and daring each other into how far we could go into the lake without getting wet from the waves. Yes, it was two soaked people that boarded the bus back to Perú.
As luck would have it, the bus back to Cusco was a local one and it stopped every half hour picking up every man and his chickens. And the old grandpa in the seat in front of us had obviously been drinking the morning away because he spent the whole bus trip throwing up…. Hmmm tasty… yek!
It was a very exhausted Elvis and Candice that leapt of the bus in Cusco….. ahhh home sweet home.
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Claire
non-member comment
After the no water blog, I'm so pleased to read about your break. Don't know how you put up with the bus ride though-must be bloody strong motion sickness tablets. Wow, the whole experience sounds surreal! Take care - thinking of you.