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

Lake Titicaca - the Peruvian side

The next day we woke up at 6am (yes, that equals four hours of sleep, and yes this was vacation) to hop on a bus to Puno. Puno is on the shores of Titicaca and about a 7 hour drive from Cusco, winding through the high Pampas region. The scenery was incredible despite a somewhat obnoxious tour guide and we got to stop at some interesting sites along the way.

These are live sheep riding on top of a van. Saw it multiple times.

The next day, we spent on a boat out on Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is at about 12,000 feet and is the highest navigable lake in the world. The weather was beautiful, though chilly in the mornings because of the high elevation.

Puno city

Our first stop was the Uros floating islands. Way back when the Spanish came, they were trying to enslave the locals. Some of them took off in their boats made of reeds and began living on their boats to escape the Spanish. Eventually they discovered that they could create floating islands made of the reeds that grow in the lake, and began creating and living on these islands. Today it is fairly overly-touristy but it was still incredible to see the way that these people had been living for 500 years.

Our next stop was the Island of Taquile which is known for its amazing textiles. We got to walk across the island, visit the textile market, and eat lunch with a great view.

We had heard Puno was a boring/ dirty town but actually found it to be quite agreeable. Decent $2 local meals, great $12 tourist food, and fairly lively and safe feeling. The boys ordered Cuy our second night there. Cuy is a Peruvian delicacy also known as guinea pig. Ashley and I each tried a bite and all agreed it was fine but somewhat like chicken wings....greasy and boney. But hey, now we had all tried both guinea pig and alpaca.

Machu Picchu

***Warning: lots of pictures. Sorry.


Machu Picchu was amazing. Beforehand I had wondered if it might be one of those very touristy things that is underwhelming when you actually see it. It was not. It was truly very impressive and beautiful. Machu Picchu was built by the Inca in the 1400's and abandoned only 100 years later as a result of the Spanish conquistadors. Experts believe it was both a sacred place as part of their religion and a place where the royals may have lived. There are a number of temples and other things relating to their worship of the sun god. Unlike many of the other ruins we visited it had not been discovered by the Spanish, and as such, was very intact. The Spanish carted off many of the stones from Inca sites that they discovered to build their own cities, so Machu Picchu is an impressive intact example of Inca architecture. It is also in stunning surroundings.

We woke up at 4 in the morning to head up from Aguas Calientes. We wanted to climb Wayna Picchu which is the pointy mountain you see in the background of many pictures of Machu Picchu. It is an incredible viewpoint of the whole site, but only the first 500 people there each day get the passes to climb it. We arrived at the site at about 5:30 am just as it got light. It was amazing to see the sun come up over all the surrounding mountains and we had an absolutely perfect blue-bird day which helped us forget about any rain we had seen up until that point. Lucky for us, almost everyone there was in a group with a guide and they all take the same circuit around the site. We quickly darted away and headed in an opposite circuit from the rest of the people. It was great to get there early and be able to explore and take pictures without the hoards that arrived later.
There's not a whole lot else to say besides showing the pictures. It was incredible. I ended up getting sick, so didn't make it up Wayna Picchu with the three others, but they had a great climb up the very, very steep path. I made friends with a local guide while waiting for them. :)

Ash + Steven

Terraces for agriculture

That mountain in the background is Wayna Picchu, the one they climbed

lil baby Alpacas. Cute!

A view of the whole complex from Wayna Picchu

Late afternoon the three non-sickies went to the hot springs in Aguas Calientes. No pictures because...who wants to carry around a camera at hot springs. We took a train and two buses back to Cusco late that night arriving at 2pm after being up for 22 hours. It was a long, but fantastic day.