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Published: August 12th 2008
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Arrived back in La Paz after an extremely bumpy flight clutching the edge of my seat most of the way and a sick bag which luckily i didnt quite have to use! The altitude hits you as soon as you step off the plane and you can´t breathe - think i´m definitely more of a sea level kind of girl!
Met up with Antonia and Philip, a lovely brother and sister i met at the Loki Hostel before i went on my pampas trip and we went to the Wild Rover Hostel bar and met up with Kevin, the boy who i swapped places with on the Rurrenabaque trip, along with a few others and went out to Club Orange where Antonia managed to fall asleep in the corner! Put her to bed then gate crashed a fancy dress party at Ram Jams where most of our hostel were, wearing togas dancing to some classic 90s tunes which seem to be popular in Bolivia!
Met up with Kevin the next day for our trip to San Pedro Prison... It isn´t exactly a legal tour and is for "gringos" - basically you take presents for the prisoners such as toiletries,
cigarettes, sweets for their children and Pringles - which they all love - and get a guided tour of the prison and speak to the prisoners. They have a gym, hairdressers, shops and restaurants on site and some of their families live with them. It was a totally bizarre experience which i can´t explain too much about because it is illegal so if you want to know anything else it might be better to email me separately rather than me publish the details to the nation on my blog!!!! There is a book based on the Bolivian side of the prison rather than the gringo side and apparently Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have bought the rights to it and are planning to make a film about the prison.
Said goodbye to Kevin who was heading off in a different direction and agreed to meet up in 5 years and get married if we are still single as we both have matching birth marks on our left hand!!!
Went to Wagamamas for dinner with Antonia & Philip, on to Club Orange with a group from our hostel again and met some locals from Santa Cruz who we danced
with before heading on to Club 36. La Paz is party capital so had to make the most of it before i moved on!
Unfortunately Antonia and Philip were travelling in the opposite direction so said goodbye to them and headed to the Zona Cementario to catch a local bus to Copacabana. Having managed to survive the various spitting and stealing scams in La Paz aimed at gringos i put my carrier bag which had my Ugg boots, trekking trainers and Lonely Planet in next to the wall behind me while i took some photos, turned back to it a few seconds later to find that it had gone! A French boy also waiting for the bus thought he saw someone pick it up and tried to quickly explain in Spanish that a man in a black hat could possibly have it, so i ran off down the hill after him only to find that he did indeed have my bag so i snatched it back and gave him my best death stare before running back to the bus and jumping straight on keeping my bags close by for the journey!
There were only 5 or 6 tourists
on the bus, the rest were locals and i got chatting to Jo from New Zealand and Kathleen from Chicago. We hopped off the bus while it was transported across the water to Copacabana and we were taken over by boat.
The 3 of us shared a very cheap room together taking advantage of the low Bolivian prices before we hit Peru and then went out for dinner. Copacabana is apparently famous for it´s delicious trout so Jo and i splashed out and ordered the "Landlord´s Trout" which came out completely overdressed and you could hardly taste the trout plus we´re not entirely sure it agreed with us.....!!!
Jo was due to catch a bus early the next morning to Cusco but had been sold a non-existent bus ticket by someone in La Paz so decided to stop back with me and do a day trip to the Isla del Sol. We got the slowest boat in the world which took 2 hours and sounded like one of the engines cut out half way across and arrived on the island, were given a map and told we could do a 3 hour-7km trek which we set off on
although unfortunately the fish we´d eaten was still not settling too well in our stomachs and we both felt really ill and dehydrated so what with that, the high altitude and the extremely hilly trek we were not in a very good state to put it mildly!
It actually took us 5 hours to do the 3 hour trek, everyone was overtaking us, we were desperate for the loo and there wasn´t one in sight until 20 minutes before the end of the trek. It was so funny that we were both in the same state and we didn´t stop laughing the whole time but had to keep stopping in case we caused ourselves an accident!!!
Lake Titicaca was amazing, really breathtaking views but unfortunately we know nothing of the history of the island because we were too engrossed in surviving the trek and had to run to catch the boat for the last 20 minutes because we´d taken so long and realised we were missing all the best bits and various photo opportunites as we sped past a lovely village and a young girl walking a lama!
We collapsed on the boat for 2 hours and
prayed that our tablets would kick in soon as we were getting a night bus to Cusco....
We hopped on to a minibus first which took us 10 minutes up the road to the border, went in to the immigration office to have our passports stamped and collected our backpacks from the roof of the minibus only to find that Jo´s was missing. The driver said that someone had taken a similar looking bag already so we ran through to the Peruvian border, quickly filled in our visas (all very organised and quick to do)
and i held the bus up shouting to the driver "bolsa robado" meaning stolen bag while Jo checked with everyone on the bus if they had taken it by mistake as we guessed it must have been an accident and not a local taking it because we had the similar backpack and no one was running around trying to look for it! The driver eventually appeared from around the other side of the coach with Jo´s backpack thankfully in his hands which we think was taken and loaded on to the bus behind ours by mistake so we did a quick swap got on
the bus for our "full cama" which is like full reclining bed seats for the overnight trip to Cusco in Peru although i hardly slept as the driver was flying around the corners at top speed i was grateful it was dark and i couldn´t see out of the window to see what the roads were like and if we were on cliff edges!!!
Have absolutely loved Bolivia - spent 4 weeks instead of the planned 2 there so was very sad to leave but have lots of good memories and am looking forward to venturing into Peru.
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