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So after a month's travelling by myself, Jo and I planned to meet in Miami on the 27th of September and travel through Bolivia, Peru, Brazil and Argentina together. The morning I flew out of Ecuador back to Miami, with the plan of meeting Jo there and then flying to la Paz, Bolivia, I found out that all flights to La Paz had been cancelled because of civil unrest and American Airlines wasn't flying there at all.
I didn't know if Jo knew anything, so I flew to Miami and waited there for her. When she got there, we tried to see if there were any other ways into La Paz - the only option was to fly to Lima in Peru and then catch a flight from Lima to La Paz - this would have cost an extra $500 or so, which we thought was too much.
So after having left Ecuador at 7am that morning, we caught a midnight flight to Lima and arrived there at 6am on the 28th. We then waited around until 1.30 (and did have an amazing eat as much as you want buffet breakfast at the Marriott airport hotel to tide us over) and caught a flight to Juilietta in Peru, and then a transfer to Puno, on Lake Titikaka - where we arrived at about 5.30pm - it had been a long trip!
The lake is beautiful, and Puno isn't a bad town - it gets a bad rap in the guidebooks. It has some dusty streets and run down buildings, but there are some nice restaurants and the main 'high street' is pretty tourist friendly.
The next day we planned to head to Copacabana, on the Bolivian side of Lake Titikaka, but the bus was full and we hadn't booked ahead - we were really feeling like the Gods of Travel were against us at this point, and poor Jo really hadn't had a good start to travelling. So we went back to Puno town, and checked into a dodgy hostel and went on a reed island tour since there wasn't anything else to do.
On the Peruvian side, a number of the local Quechua have built reed islands on the Lake, and they all live on the islands, and their houses, boats and everything is made out of the reeds. It's quite incredible to see. Our guide didn't speak enough English for us to find out why this was the case and why they moved onto the Lake or discovered the reeds, but it was interesting to see. The whole exercise was very touristy, and worth an afternoon when you don't have anything else to do and you've missed your bus.
We met a really nice Dutch couple and a South African guy who was travelling round tasting food and smoking cigars for research (he helps open luxury hotels - tough job) and we all went out for dinner and drinks that evening, and I had alpacca with banana sauce, which was very yummy.
The next day Jo and I caught the bus to Copocabana and headed over the Bolivian border - at last we had made it to Bolivia, although we were a way off La Paz. We caught a ferry to isla de sol, which is a beautiful island on the lake. We hadn't done any reading, and we had our big backpacks with us - not a good idea. When we arrived on the island, which felt quite Greek in the sunshine with all the people waiting at the ferry and a beautiful waterfall splashing down - we saw the steepest set of steps ever! And we would need to carry our backpacks up these - any of you who have been to Positano will have an idea of what I'm talking about! Anyway after huffing and puffing with my 20kg pack cursing my toiletries we made it up to the top - and the views were definitely worth it - 45 minutes later!
We had 2 days to chill out, and the next day Jo lazed in the sun outside our hostel while I went on a 6 or 7 hour hike to the north part of the island, which was very beautiful but very steep! I was trying to break my hiking boots in, and it was a very painful exercise, but the scenery kept me going.
After isla de sol and travel recovery, we caught a bus to La Paz. The plan was to organise trips to the jungle and salt flats from La Paz. I think we arrived in La Paz 5 days after our original flight was supposed to get there!
La Paz is an interesting city - we didn't get to spend much time there - we were there for one full day but it's got some beautiful buildings, and the people are friendly. It has an edgier, vibier feel than Quito does. After we'd left we also found out that apparently you can visit Quito prison (which has 3 South Africans in it) and speak to and meet the prisoners. They also apparently have a rich section and a poor section to the prison, and the rich prisoners and visitors to the jail have prisoner bodyguards if they visit the poor section. And none of this is officially allowed by the prison. But the rich prisoners can order in food, have friends and family come and visit them, Tvs - all sorts of things if they have enough money. There is a book called 'Marching Powder' which talks about it. If Jo and I had had more time, we'd have liked to have gone.
We did get one night out in La Paz - the night before we were supposed to be flying to the jungle. We went to a restaurant at the El presidente Hotel, which has the most amazing views over the city, and then on to a bar called Mongoes. It was packed with tourists and locals doing samba. i was so impressed with seeing the samba - the men are actually much better dancers than the women, and really know how to shake their hips! It was also so nice to see couples actually dancing together.
After a few Pisco sours (which I rate as highly as mojitos) we were brave enough to accept a few samba offers, although we were terrible! But we did feel like the most beautiful girls in the room, as we had a million dance offers and everyone wanted to talk to us - sometimes it's good being a foreigner! We ended up making friends with some other travellers and some local guys from La Paz and when Mongoes closed we weren't ready to go home, so we headed off to an underground club called Club 38 I think - well something with numbers anyway! It apparently used to be a coke and brothel den, but has since cleaned itself up and is now a late night drinking den the police turn a blind eye to. I found this all out afterwards.
We were there listening to the boys tell ridiculous stories (like how they had rapped themselves out of tight situations), which apparently got worse after we left, until about 6.30am and then it was a mad dash back to the hostel to pack our stuff up, have a shower and be ready for the taxi to the airport to go to the jungle at 7.30am. We were knackered!!!
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