Copacobana, Isla Del Sol: 9 Apr

Woke up, had breakfast, spent 15 minutes checking internet, organising a 10 part combination tour, calling a taxi, packing, driving to bus station, missing the bus (not my fault :-) ), transferring to a mini-bus taxi, and leaving for Copacabana on the shores of lake Titikaka. From there, it was supposed to be a simple transfer to the ferry to the Isla Del Sol, the birthplace of the mighty Incan civilisation, and as they believed, life itself!

After some negociations, my grubby handwritten voucher was transferred into a ferry ride, but not before some arb crazy tour operator had erroronously scribbled "solo ida" on it, which effectively made my return ticket a one-way!

To her credit, it did later transpire that I would have missed the bus the next day if I had waited for the correct/paid for return ferry.

So unfortunately, I didn´t that much of Copacabana, save for the giant popcorn sellers, as I spent most of my time hiking amongst the broad-bean (fava-beans: as in: "I ate his live with...") and Quinoa fields growing on pre-Columbian Inca terraces. Incredible views of Lake TitiKaka, the Isla Del Luna, and the 3 ancient settlements on this island of the sun.

Ended up having a great supper of quinoa and fava bean soup, with grilled lake kingfish and other stuff, while talking to an american who was in IT, did a first aid course, then another one, etc. was a paramedic for 4 years, and now is back in proper Med school.


10 Apr:

Waited for my ferry, it didn´t come (as mentioned earlier), so jumped aboad another one as it left and ended up talking about CERN´s distributed computering for the whole trip with a Polish couple working there, living in France. Sounded excellent.

And would you believe it, the boss (a little Amayran mother) of the other ferry company had sensed my predicament, and handed me back the 15Bs I had to pay for the trip back. But not before I had had a panicky situation as another bus co. had refused my voucher to Puno-Uros-Cusco and had to phone La Paz, with my last 50 centavos, to get authorisation for another co. to take me (plus the phone guy lent me the other 50 centavos to pay for the call.).

Anyway, got on the bus, and passed into peru with no problems or Bolivianos (currency).