Into Bolivia

I truly thought that a border crossing could not get more dysfunctional than this one we had crossing from Chile to Argentina in a rental car. But I think Bolivia may have actually one-upped them. Since the U.S. charges Bolvians for a visa to get into the US, Bolivia decided to intstitute a friendly reciprocation policy whereby US citizens must buy a $130 visa to get into Bolivia.

After our day on the floating islands we hopped on a bus to Copacabana, Bolivia. We had 'planned ahead' very well and arrived at customs & immigration with our Visa forms already printed and filled out, passport photos in hand, yellow fever certificates in hand, and 135 US dollars in hand. We got in line and were immediately told 'copias!' (copies) while being vigorously pointed to Visa form, passport, vaccination certificate, and more. During the next 45 minutes a crazy game ensued whereby we ran back and forth from a nearby copy shop to immigration approximately 45 times. Once they gave us the visas we were sent back to the copy shop yet again to get a copy of the visa that they had given us...because they need a copy of the visa they give you....right. I can't even begin to explain all the absurdness of it, but boy was it fun.

We had also 'planned ahead' very well for our money situation. We made sure to use up all of our Peruvian Soles before leaving Peru and planned to get Bolivianos out of an ATM in Copacabana upon arrival. Copa is a decent sized city. Turns out they don't have a single ATM. We were planning on catching a boat an hour after our arrival to the city and the bank was closed for the next hour and a half due to siesta. After an extremely stressful half hour of thinking we were standed in a strange Bolivian town and going to have to skip our entire Isla del Sol experience, a very nice man named Jesus (who we had bought our boat tickets from), said he would lend us the money necessary for our night on Isla del Sol and then we could go to the bank the next evening when we returned and pay him back. I can't even begin to describe all the nice people we met on this trip but this may have topped them all.

Finally we were on our way to Isla del Sol, and our two days of relaxation. It's a fairly remote island with pretty basic services, but it was absolutely gorgeous and extremely cheap.

Here's our hostel.

Have you ever seen a better view for $7/night? Yes, thats a private room.

View

Sunshine

On an afternoon stroll

Sunset

Sunset from our $3 dinner

Sunrise from our bedroom doorway

The next day we walked across the island....

...and found a sunny beach!

...and stuck our toes in Lake Titicaca