After a terrible 20 hours busride from Rurre to La Paz, we took a taxi to the other side of town, where we took another bus to Copacabana. We had to get out and take a boat to cross a part of lake Titicaca before we arrived, but after about 26 hours we could finally book into a hotel and rest a little bit.
After relaxing one day in Copacabana we visited Isla del Sol, a small island on the lake where you can walk from north to south in one or two days. In the beginning we wanted to stay the night but the we found it terribly comercialized (you had to pay "entrence fee" to three diferent parts of the city while you were crossing it and we didn't know about it, also everybody was trying to charge you for taking pictures with them), but it was still a very beautiful island as you can see on these pictures.
After we went back to Copacabana, we went souvenir shopping for a second time and then it was time for us to leave Bolivia and head to Peru. Border crossing was easy again, the whole bus was full of tourist, so we all had to get out at the border.
The town on the peruvian side of the lake is called Puno and on the day we arrived we happened to run into one of the many celebrations they do per year, the parade of the last year of high school (promo) where the kids dress up in crazy costumes, play music and dance.
The other thing we noticed when we arrived in Peru was the price diference. While in Bolivia we stayed in a really nice hotel with private bathroom, tv, etc. for 9€, in Peru we only got a shared bathroom in an old cold run-down hostel without breakfast. But I guess we will have to get used to the fact that the times when we felt rich are over again. Back to normal...
We took another tour to Isla Amantani, where we stayed one night with a local family. While we all wished for more comunication and we all would have liked to eat together with the family is seems that all the familied get taught by the tour agencies how to treat the gringo visitors, as they all prepared the same food for us and did the same activities. It was still nice, because we were only the second group to arrive in "our" family, so I think we got a pretty authentic experience. Also they did not speak spanish very well (mothertongue quechua), so it was interesting to talk. We got dressed up in their beautiful traditional dresses (the woman probably had more fun than the boys as our dresses were nicer :P ) and helped to cook a little bit (everybody cracked up laughing about my intents of peeling potatoes with a normal knife, then they gave us beans to peel with the fingers, which is a much easier work).
We decided to take a tourist bus to Cuzco which stops along the road for several times at archeological sites and the like. It was a good choice because the ride from Puno to Cuzco is 6 hours and I think it woud have gotten a bit boring without the stops. This way we got to see the biggest inca temple (they found so far ;)), some churches, mountains with glaciars and a museum.
-sandra
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