Back in Arequipa!

We got the bus from Copacabana to Arequipa via Puno. It was strange to be arriving back in places we had been before and felt like we new. We just had one night in Arequipa and decided to revisit the nice pizza place we had been to with Beth when we were here before. This time though we got there at 8pm and there was no one else there the whole time we were eating. We were treated to several 80´s classics on the big TV though which was a bonus.

On the way back to our hostel afterwards we crossed the road next to the square which was very quiet with no cars about at all. We were just going into the supermarket for a bottle of water when a Peruvian policewoman stopped me to talk to me. Jodie wondered off oblivious and I figured out the policewoman wanted to see my passport and then she told me to get Jodie back. When we were both there it turned out that we had not crossed the road at the crossing so she had to take down all our details including where we were staying, our passport numbers and then, after she had run back across the road exactly where we had crossed to get her ink, our fingerprints. We weren´t fined which was a surprise as we had been expecting to be but that seemed to just make it all the more pointless. When she had finished she just said thanks and we went on our way. Very strange!

Copacabana

We only stayed in Copacabana for 2 nights but we had a good old time having a look around and walking up the hill to look down over Lake Titicaca.

This is our view of the Lake from our room.





This is the Cathedral.




This is a pig we met on the way up the hill. He made a lot of noise.



The view from the top.

On the way to Copacabana

We got the bus to Copacabana and had to watch our bus floated precariously across Lake Titicaca while we went across in a little boat:









It made it and we got back on! Hooray!

La Paz

We arrived in La Paz at about dinner time, and starving after having eaten barely anything all day. As we came over the top of the valley in the bus and began to wind down to the valley bottom, the view of the city sprawling down the steep hills, with the snow-covered mountains in the background did take our breath away. And not just the view, as it was pretty difficult to breathe due to the altitude.

After checking into our hostel, which was amazing with a huge mural painted in our room, we went out and I managed to persuade Rich that we should go for a proper curry. Amazingly there is a brilliant British-owed curry house called the Star of India, at which we ate huge amounts.

We spent the next few days wandering around La Paz (slowly becuase of the altitude), doing some shopping, visiting museums and watching some Bolivian version of ´Trooping the colour´. We tried Bolivian Salteñas (a kind of pasty) whilst watching this for maximum Bolivian-ness, but weren´t prepared for all the juice which splurted out and all over us. Oh dear.

Cochabamba, Bolivia

We arrived in Cochabamba in the middle of the night after our super long bus journey. Our stay here mainly consisted of having a nice rest then going out to a nice coffee shop for breakfast then walking miles to find the bus station to book our onward journey. (We couldn´t find it as we were looking at the wrong thing on the map). We eventually found it and they told us we couldn´t buy our ticket until tomorrow when we wanted to leave. We had a good walk round the markets though which was interesting.



Afterwards we went to ´Dumbo´s´ to have some lunch and managed to order an amazing amount of juice. We showed the grumpy waitress we were made of sterner stuff when we managed to polish it all off!

Super Long bus journey to Santa Cruz, Bolivia

We were in good spirits after our stop in Asuncion despite the heat and were excited to be going to Bolivia... until our bus turned up.



We would rather have had this NASA bus sent from space as ours proceeded to break down numerous times in the middle of the night as well as in the day during our 28 hour journey. Here is one of the times our bus broke down:



Not only this but the super air conditioning dripped constantly on almost everyone on board but particularly Jodie which I won´t say much about- only that she wasn´t best pleased!

Anyway we made it through the border getting our passport stamped this time which was a relief and managed to get a taxi to the Hotel Italia which turned out to be very nice.

The next day we explored Santa Cruz and decided to take a trip to the zoo. We were hoping to see Sloths but some how they seemed to have hatched an escape plan and were nowhere to be seen. We saw plenty of other animals although a few that seemed a tad cooped up to say the least which was a bit sad!