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04-01-07 Puno/Bolivian Border Today we had organised to go on a trip to the Floating islands, which is basically a place in the lake where some people, I can’t remember who, decided to use mud and reeds to create these islands to live on. I didn’t know too much about the history of the islands, but thought it would be a cool thing to go see. When we got on the boat in the port the lake, which is meant to be beautifully blue in colour, was in fact green, which was a bit of a suprise, but the boat took us through the algae, and it looked really funny, as it looked like a crazy golf pitch. Ok so that last sentence had loads of commas in, sorry,,,,,,,,,,. Anyway, it took 30 mins on the boat to get out to the islands, which as you can imagine is pretty far out. When we arrived, it was quickly apparent that this place is a definite tourist trap, and that each boat that went out went to a different island, where you were first given a brief talk as to what the people on the island do, and how they got there, then you were free to "roam" the island. Basically you were free to look at the convenient stalls each of the families had set up. From here we went to another island where they had a floating school, a floating church, and a post office with store. All again for the tourists benefit. As you’re probably aware, I thought this was a very touristy place, but still pretty fascinating. Later when we returned, we had to move onto the bus to head over to Bolivia. I’m looking forward to Bolivia, as it’s such a diverse country, with mountains, lakes, jungles, etc. Plus its dirt cheap! So the bus was going to take 3.5 hours, which would take us to a place called Copacabana. It has no relevance to the song, as I think the song goes on about the Copacabana beach in Brazil. It took 2 hours to get to the border of Peru and Bolivia, and when we got there it was more of a voluntary immigration control, as the Peruvian side had a small office off the road you had to go to, which wasn’t guarded or anything, then on the Bolivian side, again there wasn't any guard patrol or anything! Basically, I could have walked right across the border without anyone giving a toss! So from the border it was only like a 20 mins ride into Copacabana. When I got off the bus, the place itself is small, very small, but also very quaint as well. It’s a nice little lakeside village, which again relies on tourists, but never the less is nice. So we went to try and find a hostel room for the night, I say we, as me and Nicola were still traveling together for the while. We tried this place right next to the bus stop, but there wasn’t any room, so we ended up bumping into these other two people who were looking for a room also. We went to their second best place, to which the guy, Robert, got us a room, with 4 beds in for 12 boliviano, or 77pence! Ok, it was pretty basic, and I mean basic in the sense that it had four beds, a door and a light bulb. But it was clean, and served its purpose.
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