Day 1 was really only a late afternoon because of our arrival time, and we had high hopes for day 2. We made a nice little sightseeing agenda and set out for the day. Annoyingly - and not for the last time on our trip - I fell a little ill during the day, so our dreams of cycling around the laguna were shot. I blamed most of my illnesses throughout the trip on the altitude, but this time may or may not be because of our horrendous trek through a never-ending market. I mean it - this market had no way out. Talk about good marketing! Here's what happened. We were actually trying to get to said laguna and the map revealed that the best way was through the market we had heard was pretty great. Great! 2 birds with 1 stone. So, we make our way to the market and yes, it's huge - and it would have been pretty great too had it not been crammed with millions of people (that is not an exaggeration), was not 1000 degrees (also not an exaggeration), and had no apparent exit. We walked through expecting to be able to get out at the end closer to the laguna, and quite honestly, the lack of a crowd near the end should have tipped us off. Instead, we were so overjoyed when the crowd started to dissipate that we picked up our step, excited to get to the laguna. Lo and behold, the reason those smart people fizzled out was because the "end" where we had walked for 30 minutes in the cramped sauna was not a point of relief! It was a point of "Oh sh*t, we have to backtrack this entire thing. *$(*#&^@&#!!!" So, we sucked it up, backtracked, and when we got out, we were literally off the map we had. Taxi time.
The afternoon was much better - a good veggie lunch followed by a trip up the teleferico to see an aerial view of the city and stand next to a GIANT statue of Jesus. Check out how small the people are next to this statue. You can see it from any point on the ground.
The next morning we took a bus to La Paz, where we only stayed a night. The city was actually much nicer than I envisioned. On the bus ride there, a lady was doing a roll call by name to make sure everyone was accounted for. Cait and I were seats 29 and 30, and those numbers also turned out to be our names. Basically, she took one look at the name Caitlin and made a wise decision that 29 was easier to say. My name is pretty difficult for people to pronounce too, so I became 30. After us, she went right back to the easy names. We couldn't stop laughing.
After La Paz, our next and last stop in beautiful Bolivia was Lake Titicaca (means "Puma Stone"), which borders both Bolivia and Peru. We arrived in a town called Copacabana just in time for lunch and the afternoon boat out to Isla del Sol, where it was recommended to us by our friend Melissa to stay for a full day. Oops - the (painfully slow) boat took 1.5 hours and the return (painfully slow) boat was to leave 1.5 hours after that. However, in our short time there, we did a fair bit of climbing and had a "formal" tour. That formal is in quotes because our tour guide was way more interested in talking on his cell than talking to us. Nevertheless, it was absolutely gorgeous and if you ever go there, try to take Melissa's advice (and now ours) and be there longer than 1.5 hours!
After an amazing *included* breakfast at the Copacabana hotel the next morning, we boarded a bus to Puno, which would mark our cross over into Peru and our goodbye to Bolivia! It's pretty surreal to walk across a border like that and fortunately at this one, US citizens aren't charged a reciprocal fee for a visa. Bienvenidos!
More on the wonderful world of Peru in my next post.
You adapt at every turn! You girls are amazing!
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