Copacabana to Puno (June 7, 2005)

The bus to Puno, Peru was leaving at 1:30pm, so we had the morning to check our emails, update the website, and buy some souvenirs. We realized that we can send some stuff back to Ottawa with Jessica (sorry Jess!), so we have actually bought a few small things.

We were a little sad to be leaving Bolivia, since there is so much of the country that we didn’t have time to see, and what we saw we enjoyed immensely. The people are friendly, the scenery beautiful, and the country has such a vibrant history. They have had so many political troubles in the past few decades, but the people have much hope in the current president, Evo Morales, who is the first indigenous president the country has had. Evo himself grew up poor in a small village, tending livestock since he was a very young child. The people seem to love him, and think he will make many positive changes for the country. He has already started to reform the education system, try to give indigenous people an equal opportunity for higher education. Our very wise friend Panchito told us that Bolivia is extremely rich in natural resources; the problem with the country is they lack the intelligence and the technology to extract and use the resources to improve the quality of life for the population. I hope that Evo will make great strides to improve the education of the people and bring the necessary technology to Bolivia, because the wonderful people here sure deserve an easier lifestyle.

Our bus ride to Puno was uneventful, as was the border crossing. We had to get off the bus, walk to the Bolivian customs to get exit stamps, and then walk across the border to the Peru customs to get entry stamps. We arrived in Puno around 3:30, after a time change set our clocks back an hour. The conductor on the bus was pushing a local hostel owned by his friend, and provided free transportation from the bus terminal, so we figured what the heck. At least we would get free transport to the city centre even if we didn’t like the hostel. The hostel was a little too basic for us, but there was another tout at this hostel who said he knew a better one nearby, so we went to check that one out. This one was okay, and for 50 soles (approximate exchange rate here is US$1 is 3 soles), we got a nice bed, private bathroom (with very hot shower), and breakfast included. This place was called the Utama Hotel.

Puno is on the Peru side of Lake Titicaca, and people come here to visit the floating islands of the Uros people that are just off the shores of Puno. The tout that brought us to the hotel, named Jose, turned out to be a tour agent, and immediately started telling us about the tours in the area. We wanted to book a tour to the floating islands for the following day anyway, and were considering a two-day tour where you stay overnight on the island with a local family. We also needed to buy a bus ticket to Cuzco for the day after we finished the tour. We knew that this guy was probably selling the tours for more than we would pay if we went to an actual office, but we were being lazy and this guy was very knowledgeable. We booked the two-day tour with him, as well as a “tourist-class” bus to Cuzco (the bus stops at a few sites along the way for some mini-tours). He told us that there was a roadblock on the road to Cuzco, about half-way and that no buses could get through for one to two days. We had heard some other travellers talking about this on the bus as well, but we don’t know if there was any truth to it. We never heard from anybody that they had trouble getting to/from Cuzco to Puno, so we don’t know if there was any truth to the story.

Jose also took us to an ATM so we could get money to pay him for the tours, and he also arranged for transfers to/from our hotel for the tour and the bus ride. He kept coming around to see how we were doing and was very nice. In the end, he did make a commission from us, but he gave us good service as well so we suppose it was worth it.

We went to Vida Natural for dinner, a vegetarian restaurant recommended in the guidebook, but it wasn’t very good. The soup was good, but the main course wasn’t and we didn’t eat much of it. Lincoln also wasn’t feeling very well again, and spend the night going to the toilet again. After taking a couple of immodiums in morning he was okay though.