Here we go!

Time to go to a new country!

Today I booked a Peru Hop bus from Puno in Peru to La Paz in Bolivia which will be the 60th country I’ve now visited.

To get ready for the trip I downloaded a bunch of stuff including last night’s US Presidential Debate.

I didn’t have the greatest sleep last night because of the cold.

The bed was laid out with multiple blankets and I just felt so weighed down that I actually woke up in the middle of night feeling claustrophobic.

Anyway, despite all that, I was up and about nice and early this morning at 6:30am.

Peruhop

After arriving in Puno less than 12 hours ago, I was packed up and waiting outside the hostel for my 7:25 pickup to take me to where the PeruHop bus was leaving at 8:00.

I didn’t realize that my pickup time was actually between 7:25 and 8:00 so when 7:35 rolled around I was getting a little worried.

What if they forgot about me?   Did I have the right date?   Do I need to grab a taxi real quick to get there instead?

And then the shuttle van came by and picked me up.

Phew.

We continued driving through the narrow streets of Puno stopping at a couple of other locations picking up more people.

I was actually impressed at how easily the van driver navigated to the different hostels and hotels.   He just knew where to go and what order to go to each.

Anyway, at 8:00 we reached our PeruHop bus.

I should, at this point, talk a bit about PeruHop.

They, along with their sister company BoliviaHop, offer bus journeys between different cities in luxury buses with the added bonus of different excursions at certain stops.

Today’s trip was going from Puno to La Paz but with a stop in Copacabana for a few hours where you have the option to do a tour of Isla del Sol (Sun Island) located on Lake Titicaca.

In all the journey would last about 13 hours but 5 of those hours would be spent off the bus in Copacabana.

Hola Boliva!

By 10:30 we were at the border control between Peru and Bolivia.

We all got off the bus and went to a little office to get our passports stamped with a Peru exit stamp and then walked about 50m down the road to the Bolivian border office.

As a Canadian I wasn’t required to have a visa to visit Bolivia so it was just simply a matter of handing over my passport and getting it stamped.

That’s true for most countries.   However, if you’re American, well you’ll have had to apply for a visa to enter the country at a cost of $150USD.

Anyway, the whole process took about 20 minutes.

I also exchanged a bit of US Cash for some bolivianos and turned on my Bolivian esim card.

Oh, and Bolivia is one hour further ahead so it was really 12:00 when the bus left again.

Lunch in Copacabana

Copacabana, which means “Relax” by the way, was only 15 minutes from the border.

It’s a small town on the seaside of Lake Titicaca which is what draws everybody to this tiny town.

Okay, now let’s talk about the name Titicaca.   Yup, if you’re like me, you got a little 3rd grade chuckle out of the name.

However, I was today years old when I found out that Titi means “cat” and Caca means “grey” so it literally translates to Grey Cat which is what the island shape resembles.

Having said that, the 10 year old in me is still gonna giggle every time I say the name.

We had an hour for lunch before we were scheduled to hop on a speed boat taking us to the Isla del Sol.

I sat at a table with Britta from Hamburg and Arno from Antwerp.

For my first official Bolivian meal, I chose the grilled trout which also came with fries, rice and a little salad.

After lunch I chatted with Mimi and Harriet from the different parts of the UK who had met in New Zealand of all places.

It reminded me of eons ago when I was traveling Australia when I was younger and I met Jeanette would as it turns out lived only 15 minutes away from me.   We ended up being roommates for a few years.

Isla del Sol

Lake Titicaca is about 280km wide and is split between Peru and Bolivia with Bolivia owning about 44% of the lake.

We hopped on a speed boat at about 1:30 and took a 70 minute ride out to Isla del Sol.

Of course the island was beautiful.   So peaceful.   Just in the middle of the lake away from everything.

It was definately worth the time to get out there.

We had about an hour and a half on the island and our guide led us along the way.

We landed at an area called Pilko Kaina which were some ancient ruins and made our way up the mountain side.

This time I took my sweet ass time climbing the 150m to the top.

I was going to stop and look around every few minutes just to marvel at where I was and the beauty that surrounded me.

The rest of them could rush to the top.   I didn’t care.   I was taking it all in.

It took about 40 minutes to get to the top and after the obligatory photos of little houses, donkeys, and the boats down below, we started our descent down to another port on the island where our boat would be waiting for us.

We’d also pass one of the few landmarks I had marked on my map to see.

The Inca Fountain.

I mean, c’mon.   This was a landmark?   You just had to laugh at how truly absurd this “fountain” was.

Ah well, everything else was amazing.

At 4:15 we were on our way back to Copacabana.

I had the choice this time to sit on the top of the boat or down below.

Once you made the choice, however, there was no switching as there wasn’t a way from the top to the bottom.

In the end I chose the bottom where I was able to just sit back and relax for the 90 minute journey back rather than freeze my ass off worrying whether I’d get sunburnt.

Think about that sentence by the way.

Freezing and getting sunburnt.

It’s been a crazy trip.

On to La Paz

We arrive back in Copacabana around 5:30 and loaded onto our bus at 6:00.

By 7:00 the sun had already set as we approached the tiny town of Tiquina.

To proceed from here we’d have to take a 5 minute ferry over to the other side of the Strait of Tiquina to the town of San Pedro de Luna.

To do so, however, meant we’d all have to disembark the bus and hop on a little speed boat while the bus crossed by barge.

Apparently the barge would just sink with us on the bus and who the hell wants to be swimming at this time of night, amiright?

When we arrived on the other side we had about 10 minutes to wait for our bus to arrive so it gave me a chance to have some Bolivia street food.

My guide was eating a burger and I saw the burger patties sitting in a tray and asked him to communicate to the lady selling the borders that I’d like to just order a couple of burger patties since I couldn’t have a full burger because of my gluten allergy.

Ain’t no way I was gonna type that all in on Google Translate.

For 6bob ($2) I was soon chowing down on a couple of tasty burger patties.

Damn, that hit the spot.

Around 7:30 we were all back on the bus and in for a little surprise.

First our guide handed out little bags of popcorn and then he popped in a video of The Mask for all of us to watch.

What a great way to kill some of the 2 1/2 hours left til we reached La Paz.

Popcorn and a movie!

La Casa Bonita

Finally at 9:45 we had arrived in La Paz and by 10:00 I was at my home for the next 5 days.

When I initially was looking for a hostel to stay at here in La Paz I had narrowed it down to a couple of places.

I had emailed each of them about my late arrival time and was asking if there was any place open around their location where I could get a very late dinner.

Oscar, who runs the La Casa Bonita hostel, got back to me and said he’d be able to pick something up for me to have it waiting for me when I arrived.

All I had to do was message him a day or two before arriving at tell him what I wanted.

I mean, wow, now that’s impressive.

Obviously, the selection for a hostel was complete right there and then and tonight there was a box of chicken with rice and potato waiting for me when I checked in.

The place itself literally looks like a home.   There’s the kitchen right next to a giant living room complete with couches and a coffee table and the bedrooms upstairs.

There’s even a few shelves laid out in the kitchen like a little store where you can buy stuff and he has a little bowl of boliviano coins you can exchange your bills for.

Gotta say, from first glance this looks and feels like a home and I’m ecstatic to be calling it my home for the next 5 days.

Anyway, that was the trip from Peru to Bolivia.

Let’s see what adventures I can get up to here in Bolivia…