Lake Titicaca
Beginning of January 2013
We didn't manage to make the trip to Copacabana, Bolivia, in one day from Cusco because the bus arrived with 2 hours of delay in Puno, at 16:00. And the last bus for Copacabana was leaving at 15:30. So we spent the night in Puno, with the Danish couple we met in Cusco going in the same direction as us.
We skept the Uros (floating island), because it just became a tourist trap. Next morning, 7:30, our bus was leaving for Copacabana. Two hours later we were at the border, where we had to queue 20 minutes to get the stamp of the Peruvian immigration, before going to the police office to get the exit stamp. Then we had to walked to the Bolivian side to get the entrance paper and stamp pretty quickly. One thing we discovered, is that there won't be many American tourists since they must pay more than US$100 to enter Bolivia. It's what you call "reciprocal visa fee", welcome! Back on the bus, we were in Copacabana a bit more than one hour later.
The program was to spent 3 nights in town to relax, enjoy the lake and decide what we would do next. We stayed at the Hotel El Mirador with a great view other the lake, after discussing the price because, yeah, I forgot to tell you about something. Leaving Cusco we made a little catch-up budget plan on our travel costs after checking our spending in each countries so far and where we should be at. Of course, there was a gap! Not huge, but not small neither. So, until the end of March, we will be (or should I say "try") to leave with us$40 per day for both of us. That sounds feasible in Bolivia, but I really don't know how it will be in Argentina and Chile. We'll see! Ojala!
We also started to take our medicines we bought in Lima for the stomach because our digestion process was going up and down every day and we still didn't feel very good since a long time. It was about time to cleaned it up.
Reading books, updating the website design, writing some texts and emails, sleeping, eating, walking around. 3 days later we can advise to skip all restaurant down on the beach side, they are the worse. On the 2nd night, we were very happy to see the tropical rain coming for once, so that the people playing super loud music on the beach out of a pickup's trunk would finally leave, at 00:30/01:00.
Then we set off on a boat to go to the north part of Isla del Sol, Challapampa, to spend one night there. We were happy to find a not too expensive room in town looking out to the cordillera with magnificent 6000/7000m summits. On the next day we walked from North to South on the ridge line, waiting until the morning rain was almost other before leaving our room.
We arrived in Yumani after 3 good hours, taking time to take pictures, where we were a bit sad to already have booked our bus ticket to La Paz. The view from the summit of the village is just amazing. We stopped for a nice lunch on a terrace with a huge view of the lake. We sat there until we had to get down to catch the afternoon boat back to Copacabana. The guy who sold us tickets wanted to put us on a boat which was apparently already full. We just made it to walked around the pier to catch another one just leaving.
We left town the following days in afternoon with a bus to La Paz.
Lake Titicaca from Copacabana
Copacabana
Lots of people come here for a ritual to protect themselves and their car on the road
Offers for the cars & people
Cathedral of Copacabana
Show in front of the Cathedral
Challapampa, Isla del Sol
Cordillera with some 7000m summits
Our hostel for the night, pretty new.
Ridge trail on Isla del Sol
Challa 1
Gorgeous view from Yumani, for our lunch!