SA - COPACABANA - PUNO-1

We’re finally leaving Bolivia. It’s been one awesome trip through such a diverse landscape.

We had no chance of a late check out as Hotel Las Olas is so popular they won’t even hold a room. Out check out was at 11 am so we milked every minute as we just fell in love with the little round house we had for the last 3 nights.

There was nothing for us to do now but wait until 5pm when out hop on bus arrived to take us to Puno in Peru.

Conversations between us are getting thin, I guess spending so much time together is only just starting to wear us thin. We just hung out in the hammocks with the llamas oblivious to each other. We just needed to tune out for a while.

Lunch was delayed as we really didn’t want to be traipsing around town aimlessly. Set menus for lunch for me were getting a little too often and so I disappointed myself further by ordering a pizza. It turns out to be nothing more than a pita bread with cheese, olive and chicken with a dry crumbling base. I struggled to eat it as I’d wanted a pizza for the last 3 days.

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The Anchor, Bolivia Hop’s Bus pick up point

The pick up point was down by the lake alongside the huge anchor. Several other tourists were also gathering, some were taking in their last drinks at the many small bars that line the road that follows the shoreline.

Like clockwork 5pm and the bus arrives and there’s Alejandro, the guide that bought us up from La Paz to greet us aboard. It’s a short lived reunion as in 20 minutes we reach the Bolivian border with Peru. This is as far as the bus goes, we now have to get stamped out of Bolivia and walk across the border. I have no problem but as Elena’s passport is filled with so many stamps the immigration guard fails to recognise the Bolivian entry stamp and has now thumbed through Elena’s passport several times. He advises her that she can’t leave Bolivia. Elena insists he look again, and he grunts as he realised he’s not seen the stamp earlier.

Crossing into no mans land we’re greeted by two stray dogs that seem to have no jurisdiction nor allegiance to either country. I make the joke that they’re drug dogs as so far no one has checked our bags. A few steps later and on the Peruvian side we’re greeted by a couple of sheep! I guess things in Peru are done a little differently.

After standing in a queue for half an hour we were in Peru. No bag checks at either end. I guess that’s how easy it is to move drugs around South America. They’re more worried about an Ex Russian holding a New Zealand Passport than the drugs that anyone of the 100 odd people crossing the boarder could be carrying.

Jose, our Peruvian guide (Peru Hop Buses) introduces himself and ushers us onto our new bus and slips on A movie for us all to watch. Sadly with so many bumps in the road the dvd skips a few times and poor Jose has to rewind a few times so we can get the plot of the move running smoothly. With all this rewinding we reach Puno before the end of the movie, so we never know wether the Autobots win in the Transformers movie.

We’re quickly transferred into taxis to take us to our hotel for the night as the bus would never fit down the narrow streets.

It still reasonably early and as the TV has a USB input I slide my stick in and watch another movie before falling asleep with the TV still on.