Lake Titicaca to La Paz

We arrive in Puno and follow our friend Raj from the Inca Trail to a hostel Inka's Rest. The owner and her husband were quite helpful and the husband Alfredo was amuzing with his constant mate drink and cigarette smoking. The next day Raj and I headed out to the islands as Lora had to unfortunately battle some stomach ailments. The boat stopped at the floating islands which were interestingly enough floating on a bunch of dirt and reeds. The stop was cool, however the islands were way into tourism and had a slight Disneyland feel. Afterwards we took the boat, ever so slowly to the island of Amantani and stay with the Santos family. After a meal of potatoes and sour tasting cheese we meet Sr. Santos and his grand daughter Brenda who live typical lives away from the excitement of the city which Sr. Santos said drove him crazy. We then hike up to the top of the island for a great sunset and eat a dinner of rice and potatoes. A carb monster's dream! The next day we head to the island of Taguile to look at handicrafts and eat a lake trout lunch.

The next day we hopped onto a Bus to Copacabana, not the one in Brazil but the one in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. We get to the border and the process is as follows: 1. Get off bus and walk to immigration office of Peru to get exit stamp. 2. Get told you need to go to police first 3. Go to the police station to get entrance card inspected and stamped. 4. Return to immigration office to get exit stamp 5. Walk about 10 minutes around a wall and procession. 5. Find hidden Bolivian Immigration office, wait in line for someone to tell how to do the US visa 6. Sit down and hurrily fill out form and show documentation to official. 7. Go outside, change money to make copy of passport and yellow fever shot 8. Return to pay visa fee of $145. 9. Argue that the visa fee should be $135, get told to read the sign 10. Explain in Spanish that the fee is $135 11. Get asked for hotel details which was sitting on the desk 12. Pay $135, see the man just open a drawer full of American money for change and get visa sticker. 13. Wait in main line to get stamp and watch the visa stamper spend minutes looking through passport 14. Finally get my 5 year visa for Bolivia. We then had to get off the bus in Copacabana after paying a random 1 Boliviano fee on the bus. The bus then had no land route to La Paz which required us to take a 'ferry' across the lake which was a crappy looking boat and the bus took a rickity barge that people bucketed water out of at the dock.

We are now in La Paz at a Hostel that has a microbrewery and a free beer everynight. The beer is pretty good but in no means mind blowing. Today we will try to figure out what to do in Bolivia.