Titicaca, La Paz, and The Jungle

Lake Titicaca

After about 6 weeks of traveling through Peru, we finally reached our final destination where we would cross into Bolivia. Puno is a small, dirty city on the Peruvian side of the infamous Lake Titicaca. Not much to see there, other than trips onto the "highest navigable lake in the world..." or so they say...we've read otherwise.

We arrived late at night from our bus and were starving. We asked our hostel owner the best, cheap food in Puno and he replied, "do you want the best burger in Peru?" Naturally, off we went. And sadly for Peru, it was the best burger we have had...because the meat patties were frozen and imported from Argentina. Mmmm mmmm. Sure makes us excited for the next part of our trip and good beef!

We spent the following day walking around and checking out the sites. The only notable attraction...other than the fact that it sits on Lake Titicaca, was the Yavari boat docked in the lake. The boat was ordered by the Peruvian government for Lake Titicaca back in the 1800s. They bought it from the British and had it sent in pieces by cargo ship. It was supposed to take 6 months...it took 6 years. Not only did they have to sail the pieces to Peru, but if you've looked at a map of Lake Titicaca, it is no where near the coast. It was then shipped by train and carried over the mountains by donkeys and llamas. After that kind of history, we had to check it out. And it gave us an excuse to ride one of those motorcycle tuk tuk things we saw all over town!
That day we also visited the Coca museum, which was more entertaining for its cultural dance clothes you could try on:
The next day we took a day tour to two islands on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. The first stop was Uros: Isla Flotantes, or the floating islands in English. When we stepped off the boat onto one of the islands, I was blown away. Mikey, being a discovery channel geek, seemed to already know quite a bit about the islands and was not as impressed. I guess there is truth to ignorance being bliss. It was crazy though! They really built all of the islands out of reeds! And they really are floating in the middle of the lake! I know that seems obvious with the name, but impressive nonetheless. We were given a demonstration of how the islands are created, using the roots from the reeds, bound together by long strings made of reeds, then topped with tons of reeds. The islands were then anchored to the bottom of the lake.

We then took a little boat ride on one of the reed boats, escorted by the twins of the island.

From there we took an excessively long boat ride out to the next island, Isla Taquile. It's an island. It happens to be on Lake Titicaca, making it a tourist destination, but other than that, nothing special. We were pleased with ourselves in our decision not to spend a night there.
And that also meant we could get Mikey's coveted dinner one last time in Peru before we left. We realized while walking around Puno the first day that there were a record number of "broasted pollos" restaurants all over town. As you all know, anything with chickens in the window attract Mikey. We tried it one night and I swear it was the best chicken either of us had eaten. While I normally frown upon the same dinner two nights in a row, I gave in and compromised for once. Still incredible the second night.

We boarded a bus bright and early the next morning to cross the border and headed to the other side of the lake, to the city of Copacabana. Don't worry, I sang Mikey the Copacabana song the whole way. Until I realized the song is referring to Cuba. When we reached the border, 4 of us on the bus were segregated from the rest and put in a separate line, where we asked to pay $135 to get into the country. If you think we were scammed, unfortunately not. Of all the countries in the world, only Americans must pay a "reciprocity fee" for entering Bolivia, because that is how much we charge Bolivians to apply for American visas. As much as we wanted to be angry about this...we deserve it.

It got worse when we reached the second immigration official. We were told we needed a copy of our passports for them to keep on file (why?). So, of course, they make you find a copy place yourself and bring them copies. They didn't mention that they also wanted a copy of our yellow fever vaccines, which they didn't ask to see of any other nationality, much less a photocopy. Mike asked a simple question when he went to make copies for the second time, could he put both on one page. The guy responded with a curt and angry no, then proceeded to mutter to himself in Spanish that if Mike didn't like it he could go ahead and just not enter Bolivia. Geeez.

Like most borders, they ask you to get off the bus and walk across the border. Us Americans held up the other 30 passengers waiting for our visas. Could we be more singled out?

Copacabana

Well, we finally made it and learned within seconds of getting off the bus that Bolivia is really cheap! We had asked our last hostel if they had a recommendation in Copacabana. He mentioned one and said it was 25 per person. Assuming he meant soles ($8 per person), we ignored the recommendation thinking it was a bit expensive in comparison to the guide book. When we stepped off the bus, there were hoards of ladies with flyers promoting their hostels. We saw the same one that had been recommended by our last hostel and asked how much. She also said 25. Mike asked "dollars." The woman just laughed. She thought that was hilarious. No, not dollars, Bolivianos. Which is about $3 per person. Sweet!

And the cheapness didn't end there. We wandered looking for food and saw all the little touristy restaurants on the lake serving trout. Deciding to treat ourselves after paying a hefty fine to enter the country we sat down. For about $2.50, we were served a whole trout in garlic sauce, rice, papas fritas and salad. The trout on this side of Lake Titicaca was phenomenal. It was called Trucha Criolla and neither of us had ever seen anything like it. They were huge! Tasted almost like Salmon in the middle because they were so meaty. At this point in time, I was stoked on being in Bolivia (almost 3 weeks later, I'm quite a bit less enthused, but more on that later).

We walked around town the rest of the day and soaked up the hippie vibe of the town. The place was full of Argentinian and Chilean hippie expats. It was clean, chill and relaxing. The main street was lined with little cafes, all blasting Bob Marley and street vendors selling their crap. Berkeley? We felt at home.
We checked out their cathedral which was supposed to have an incredible wooden Virgin Mary statue. It did, but the impressive part was the Capilla de Velas, or Candles room. Actually, we thought we had gotten ripped off at first, because at the entrance to the cathedral there are dozens of women selling candles, presumably to light in the church. We bought a few and walked through the church only to find no nook to light candles. Confused, we then realized that there was an annex on the side of the cathedral, made of stone and lined with candles. The entire room was black from the years of smoke. It was breathtaking.
We hiked up to a look out point to enjoy our first Bolivian beer and the sunset. Unfortunately, when we got to the top, sounds of a storm brewing became rampant and we had to retreat. But not before dusting the beers. And we were excited. The cheapest beer here, Pacena, takes any Peruvian beer in a heartbeat. Mike found his favorite, otherwise known in bars as the backpacker's beer, Bock...it's 7%, cheap and kind of tastes like a forty.

We hopped on another boat the following day to explore the biggest island on Lake Titicaca, Isla del Sol. Hands down, the lake from the Bolivian side is much more impressive. It's a shame that most tourists who come to the lake see it from Puno. On the Peruvian side it is actually a little bay and you miss the majority of the lake. From the Bolivian side, it is an endless blue horizon and significantly more picturesque.

We got off the boat on the far side and hiked across the island. There were Incan ruins on the island, which I guess is cool if you've never seen Incan ruins. At this point, we were underwhelmed and pretty much over the whole Inca history. Here is a sacred Incan rock...
But it did give Mikey an opportunity to finally build a cairn, which he's been wanting to do for a month now. The construction is documented in a video below. There was a path that followed the ridge on the top of the island all the way across. We hiked for about 3 hours and enjoyed the views. We hopped back on our boat and had no idea the hell we were in for.
About 10 minutes into the ride back, the weather started getting very gray and the wind picked up. Well, I never knew that a lake could produce such rough waters, but we learned that with enough wind, it felt like being out in the middle of the Pacific. At least a dozen people were booting on the boat. It started with a baby that puked on some girl squeezed next to her (because of course they stuffed the boat a good 10 people beyond capacity) and it set off a chain reaction. The following 2 hours were filled with people pushing their way to the back of the boat or screaming "bolsa, bolsa!" (bag in Spanish). Not fun.

Now, I'm not sure if it was some 24 hour later reaction from the boat ride (unlikely), or the fact that everyone gets sick in Bolivia...but I finally did. We were stuck in Copacabana for the next 2 days because I couldn't move. Mikey was a good doctor for his whiny patient.

I finally felt ready to brave the bus ride to La Paz and we took off for the big city. About an hour into the ride, several people deboarded, then several more and the next thing you knew, everyone was getting off the bus. It was about 50% tourists and we all seemed confused. The bus closed its doors and drove onto a wooden plank thing on the river. The photo below better explains what happens next.
And yes, off our bus went with all our things. No one told us how to get across the river ourselves, but like a good pack of tourists, we wandered to the side of the docks together. We were all asked to buy tickets for a little dingy boat to drive us across. Still not sure to this day if we could have just stayed on the bus or not, but we met it on the other side and off we went!

La Paz

As we drove down the hill approaching La Paz, we got a great view of the huge city, sprawled in a valley and up the mountains surrounding it. Especially at night, with all the houses lit up, it is quite a sight to see. Per usual, we walking toured the hell out of the city. It's definitely busy and bustling and full of bootleg crap. Everywhere. Our DVD collection is incredible now.

There are also an incredible number of international cuisine restaurants that are remarkably good, in comparison to other countries we've been to thus far. From Moroccan, to Thai, to Japanese, to Indian, I don't think we've had one "Bolivian" meal in La Paz yet. Which is good, because it's just chicken and rice and we've had plenty of it on the road traveling from city to city.

On our walk through the black market (best of all countries we've been so far), Mikey spotted my hell. Thousands of bootleg track suits. I had flashbacks to the first time I met him, in his vintage original Adidas 1970s edition navy blue track suit that I was so excited he lost a few years later. Well, it's back. Only this time it is a fake Adidas suit and it is red and black. He hasn't been able to wear it yet...thank god...but in due time.

Picture to come soon.

We walked all the way up to the top of the city, where the government recently constructed a kids playground overlooking the city. It's shockingly nice, but a pain in the ass to get to. Regardless, we got some fun views of the "skyline."
Our last night in town was Halloween. We forced ourselves to stay in more of a party hostel here so we would have easy access to a Halloween Party. We found costumes on the street for about $4, maybe one of the best costumes I've seen Mike in. Homemade Frankenstein. I had to be a witch because witches got free drinks at the party and I wanted to drink our costumes worth plus. Spend Halloween in one of the highest cities in the world: Check!
The Jungle

We grappled over where to go from La Paz, but consistently heard of 3 must-sees in Bolivia: Lake Titicaca, The Amazon Basin and the Salt Flats. We were definitely planning on the Salt Flats, but the Amazon...well, it's not that we didn't want to go, it's just really out of the way. After the cost of entering the country, we decided to sack up and get our money's worth. Most people fly to Rurrenabaque, the closest town to the basin, but we thought we'd save $300 and take an $8 bus ride. Who cares if it was 18 hours each way...along the edge of cliff and dirt road?

We arrived at the bus station in La Paz just before 11am to catch our bus. Now, remember how I said I had been a little sick. It wasn't exactly gone yet. And we got to the bus only to learn there was no bathroom aboard. 18 hours?! No bano?! Uh oh. I lived in fear the next 18 hours. It turned out ok, but when people said the ride was scary, they weren't joking. The road was barely wide enough for the bus at times and sitting next to the window, where I could see the thousands of feet below us didn't make me feel any more safe. On top of it all, at about 10pm, we heard a loud crack through the window. It sounded like backfire and Mikey told me not to worry. Well, soon enough, our driver stepped out and our back tire had been torn to shreds. Thankfully we had reached the part of the road that was wider.

Now, if you do the math, 18 hours from 11am is 5am. Seems reasonable. Plus all buses take longer than they say, so we figured we'd arrive bright and early. The engine turned off at 3:45 in the morning and we assumed we were at a rest stop. Fortunately the nice lady next to us informed us that we had arrived. In a tiny little city in the middle of no where, we strolled the streets at 4 am. No hostels were open to check into, no restaurants open. Only a karaoke discotheque with a dude passed out on the street, legs on the sidewalk, body laying in the street.

We wandered until we found a park that was at least lit...and waited. Stupid bus.

We found a tour operator racing around town on his motorcycle and offered us a spot on their tour leaving that morning. Ready to get on with it, we agreed, and hopped in a jeep for yet another 3 hour ride to the river.

We took what was called the Pampas tour, which consisted of a mini safari trip in a long boat down a river to view the wildlife in the wetlands. On the first day, we took a slow boat ride for about 4 hours to our campsite. In Mike's words at the time: "This is great, it's like being in a lazy boy and having animals come to you." It was true. While we sat and chilled, we saw countless animals and birds. And to think how scared I was of the one Cayman alligator we saw in Costa Rica. This is not an exaggeration...over the 3 days in the Pampas, we saw thousands of alligators, swimming all around us. Scary at first, but you eventually got used to it. In addition, we are finally learning to appreciate birds, because there were some crazy cool birds in the Amazon. With feathers beaming from their beaks, to more vivid colors than I've ever seen.



This bird almost ate Mike. It was almost 5 feet tall and it's beak was over a foot long. I told Mike to stand next to it so we could get some perspective, but the bird pecked and ran at him. A good photographer would have stood still and documented. I'm afraid of birds. I, too, ran. Sorry.
My favorite of all were the Capybaras. They look like 140 pound hamsters. They are the largest living rodents in the world and I wanted to keep one.
What initially swayed me to braving the bus ride was hearing that you can see pink dolphins. And they were everything I hoped for and more. Unfortunately, unlike the dolphins we saw in the oceans, the freshwater dolphins seemed much more discreet. They didn't jump out of the water far and it was a true challenge to get a photo of one. We did see the pink dolphin jump out once, which made my trip. This was the best we could do. Guess you'll have to go see them yourselves:
Actually, when we arrived to the cove where the dolphins lived, our tour guide told us it was a good time to cool off and take a dip. I thought he was joking, considering we had seen hundreds of alligators just 100 meters from the cove. Hell no. Then he took off his shirt and jumped off the boat. Someone was nice enough to inform me that the dolphins are territorial and keep the alligators out, but I was still nervous to stay in the water for too long. We had to swim with the pink dolphins though!
Over the next 3 days, we continued our animal search. One morning we hiked into the jungle looking for wild anacondas. I know what you're thinking: who are you? Yeah, well, I hoped I wouldn't be the one to find the anaconda. After 3 hours of searching, our guide finally said, you guys sit under this tree and I'll go look and bring back whatever I find. Well, he was a true bad ass and sure enough, an hour later, he emerged from the jungle holding a 7-8 foot anaconda.

On our last day, our guide took us piranha fishing. Mikey and I had too much fun with this. I'm pretty sure we're about to get really into fishing. Warning friends.
All in all, the trip was worth the longest, scariest bus ride I've ever taken. We saw some crazy animals. On the drive back to town, we got another flat tire. I'm noticing a trend here. The roads are impressively bad.
We're back in La Paz and about to hop on another overnight bus to Sucre. I have realized that we'll spend at least half of our time in Bolivia just getting to the next destination, hence my growing dislike for this country. Regardless, it's worth it.

Til next time...

Mikey&Marisa

P.S. Technical difficulties with video uploads. Coming soon...