Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

It started in a cesspit and ended with an act of unsolicited kindness – our experience of Lake Titicaca was to sum up our impressions of Bolivia and its wonderful people.

Calling Puno on the Peruvian side of the lake a cesspit is perhaps a little strong, but seriously who in their right mind builds a sewage ditch running the length of the lake shore ?!

Of course, this didn’t deter us from having sun downers on the shore but we were both in agreement that the town planners should probably have been taken outside and shot.

In no mood to hang around, we boarded the first bus the next morning heading across the border to Copacabana, Bolivia. The border crossing was nothing more than a disinterested formality, and walking across the border we now found ourselves inside a country we had heard vilified as dangerous and unstable.

What a load of absolute rubbish that turned out to be…

It doesn’t take much at all to take your breath away in Copacabana. In fact just sitting still in the rarefied atmosphere at 3900m, you can occasionally feel your breathing becoming laboured. Walking up a hill… well let’s just say that’s a bit harder still. It doesn’t help when the seventy-something year old local powers past you carrying a huge load on their back either !

That first night we encountered the local delicacy -  trucha (trout) – in the rustic beach side eateries. The local dogs expressed much interest in the scraps from the table and we soon had a small pack of wagging tails around our feet.

Just about everyone who visits the lake will end up going on a trip to one of the islands – either the island of the sun or the moon. For us this was the Isla del Sol, or the island of the sun.

We managed to find a friendly lady at a local travel agency who gladly sold us a ticket on one of her boats heading out the next day. The boat ride was a rather sedentary putter out towards the large island, taking nearly two hours to go not very far at all.

During our hike along the spine of the island we were introduced for the first time to the Bolivian custom of the “hidden cost”. Every village we passed through had a representative waiting to extort some fee from the passing Gringos.

Although the fees were a pittance expressed in any other currency everyone was getting rather fed up with it. Things came to a head when our group was stopped about 100 meters from the last checkpoint for a final payment. Tempers flared and a shouting match developed between the “guard” and the Spanish speaking members of the group as we stood by watching the exchange feeling more than a little embarrassed. Of course everybody ended up paying in the end.

We decided to stay the night on the island as our argument had dragged on and we’d have to run to catch the boat by now anyway. Our Lonely Planet led us towards what promised to be the best hostel, only to find that the hostel owner was playing the trumpet at a local wedding fiesta and would be returning at some indefinite time in the morning.

We later learned that  just about the entire population of the island was at the wedding and we were lucky to squeak into a hostel just before the family running it left to join the party.

An entertaining Irish couple from our group invited us for a few drinks later in the evening, and this is where the wheels started to fall off. Lets be clear here, we weren’t badly behaved or anything, we simply didn’t pay enough attention to our Lonely Planet guide.

More specifically we didn’t take the warning that there was no ATM in town seriously enough, and proceeded to drink the expensive restaurant beers with no thought to our dwindling supply of Bolivianos.

In our defence the Lonely Planet clearly stated that we could get a cash advance on our credit card from a local hotel every day except Monday (the next day).

Waking up the next morning and examining our precarious financial position we found that we only had enough money to cover our hostel bill for the night, and maybe buy a dry roll or two for lunch. Thoughts of creeks and paddles came to mind.

The cash advance option was still firmly on the table however and Al was typically bullish in his belief that we could get our hands on some cash the next day. A day of dry roll rations was unlikely to kill us after all.

The bitter reality was explained to us by the same friendly travel agent lady who had sold us our tickets when we enquired about a bus to La Paz the next morning. We could indeed draw some money from our credit cards, but the place offering this service was closed for the next three days. Oops.

The crestfallen looks on our faces must have struck a chord with her. Before we knew it she had pressed 400 Bolivianos cash into our hands, explaining that we could pay her sister in La Paz the money when we arrived there.

We stared at each other in dumbstruck disbelief – we were saved ! Not only could we afford to pay our hostel bill, we could get a decent meal and still pay for a bus to La Paz.

Our journey in Peru had jaded us somewhat – Al especially -  and yet here was a woman we really didn’t know at all and she was just handing over rolls of cash to us that she clearly didn’t have to spare. Simply unbelievable.