Peru to Bolivia

Well we´re now safely ensconced in Bolivia, seems like we´re tearing through Sth America!!

So just to let you know what we´ve been up to the last few days (apart from thinking about English grub and home!)
On Friday we took the bus from Arequipa to Puno, we were supposed to leave Puno on the 11.30am bus, it was 1pm by the time we pulled out of the bus station, we were a bit peeved as it was a 6-7 hour journey and we´d not booked a hostal in advance, which meant we would not be arriving til late.
All the time the bus was late all the locals were shouting at the driver and banging on the bus floor shouting "vamos" (which means "Let´s go") it was quite funny and even me and Matt took our turn!
The bus was really grotty, despite the fact that we had paid over the odds with a travel company (rather than book the tickets ourselves, we´re getting lazy!!) it was full of smelly locals with the contents of their houses, and no this time I´m not kidding!
There was one woman with the entire contents of her house in the underside luggage compartment of the bus (maybe this is why we were late getting away?)
I have even seen animals been bundled in there in Banos (Ecuador) but that is a visual I would rather forget!
Anyway the bus journey was pretty uneventful, the locals on the bus turned out to be really friendly, and one of them even asked us to keep an eye on his bags while he got off for a while, others were telling us how much longer it was before we arrived, where to get off etc, we felt like royalty!!
Once we got to Puno we were offered a hostal at the bus depot, luckily it´s one we had seen in our Rough Guide handbook so we jumped in a cab and got a nice room for 10GBP a night, with free internet access!!
Puno is a really nice place, despite what we had read about it, very touristy (if you like that kind of thing) lots of nice places to eat, the usual souvenir shops, internet cafes etc and the weather was decent too.
We booked a trip straight away to go on Lake Titicaca to see The Uros Floating Islands
They had just finished building a boat when we arrived so they cajoled us all into helping them launch it into the lake!
We then went another 2.5 hours by boat onto another Island, Taquile, which is often described as the closest you can get to heaven?!
There are only 2,200 inhabitants on Ths Island and it really was beautiful, although Matt was extremely ill with altitude sickness so we missed the tour guide and all the info he was telling us, so I can´t really tell you much about the place.
While the tour guide was telling us about the place I was patting Matt´s back while he threw up all over the beautiful Island ;-)
He was green in the face, I have never seen anybody that shade before and he was all cold and sticky, bless him, anyway he was a brave soldier and insisted on climbing up to the top despite his weakness and nausea, I´m pleased to say he´s much better today and back to his old self (looking at pics of food on the internet)
We have posted some pics today though of The Floating Islands and the Indigenous folk who live there, I´m sure you´ll find them extremely colourful!

Today we got the bus from Puno across the Bolivian Border to a place called Copacabana (I haven´t seen Barry Manilow yet??)
The border crossing was a breeze, which is a relief as you do hear quite a few horror stories as I´ve mentioned before.
The bus journey is only 3.5 hours and it was full of backpackers, and the bus was actually playing decent music!!
So when I say decent, I mean George Michael, Sting, The Stones, Supertramp, The Eagles etc, now I know Ben will be reading this and thinking "that´s not decent music" but when you have come by bus from Ecuador to Bolivia (which is a lot of miles!!) listening to the incessant tra la la la, diddle le de de bullshit that we have had to endure, then believe me this becomes decent music!!
Tomorrow we are back on the lake to The Isla Del Sol and The Isla De La Luna, which should be good, I´ll post more about that once we´ve returned.
It involves a strenuous 3 hour trek, I think we´ll be able to cope with that (GASP!)
The trip cost us $4 each, which is cheap as chips and it´s a full day on the lake with an English speaking guide!

On Tuesday we are getting the bus to La Paz (the capital) we have to be a bit tighter with our schedule now if we want to see and do everything that we have planned, plus the hostal that we chose this time is an absolute dump ($7 for the night, for us both!) so it´s an incentive for us to get our @rses into gear.
If I told you the bathroom was painted in pink gloss would that give you an idea??
The bus into La Paz is only 3.5 hours, which compared to some of the mammoth journeys we´ve done so far is like getting the bus at home into town!
This is another reason why we can´t afford to hang about anywhere as bus trips take up so many valuable days, night buses are available quite often but if you take the night bus then you don´t get to see anything, so it´s a bit of a compromise.

So that´s about it for the time being, will probably post again when we get to La Paz on Tuesday
Adios Amigo´s

P.S Matt has had a fry up for his brunch today (Bacon, Egg and Tomato) he seems a bit happier ;-)