South America Day 31

---

12th February

Our flight back to La Paz was to be at 12.30 from Rurre and the boat ride down river was 3 hours so another early start. After early breakfast we walked the 20 minute trail back to the boat and off we went. The boat travelled fast down stream, again rocking through rapids spraying us all in the boat.

At 11am the boat arrived in Rurre and then a short bus journey took us to the airport. As mentioned before the airport is a basic affair, grass runway, wooden terminal and a relaxed feel about it. We 'checked in' and waited for our plane. The 45 minute journey was much smoother then on the way there and we landed without a hitch back into the thin air of La Paz.

After already spending 2 days in La Paz the last week we wanted to move on today and it was still early. We agreed a price with a taxi to take us to a street where the buses left from that we showed him on our map. After 15 mins we seemed to be in the wrong part of town & he gestured we were here, I knew this was wrong and showed him the map again. It seemed there had been a miss communicaton and he had misread the place, so off we went again. When we arrived at the bus terminal he was insistant we should pay more but we were insistant we had shown him the map at the airport and he had been wrong, we paid him the previously agreed fare and went on our way.

Soon after leaving the taxi we had found a minibus going to Copacabana on lake Titicata, our next destination so we bought a ticket and away we went. The minibus had the smallest ammount of leg-room I have ever experienced and the 3 hour ride was pretty uncomfortable but the scenery was fantastic.

We arrived in Copacabana around 5pm and found a basic but clean place to stay. Copacabana is on the shore of lake Titikaka, almost like a seaside town with streets heading off uphill from the shore. The altitude is around 3800m so walking around is again really difficult. As we were walking along the street looking for somewhere to eat we bumped into one of the guys we had shared a jeep with a couple of weeks earlier crossing from Chile to Bolivia so agreed to eat out together. We found a cool little restaurant serving pasta, pizza and local fish washed down with big beers. We had a good night listening to a live band with traditional percussion based music & walked back to the hostel in heavy rain.

---