Bolivia

The pictures are:

1. Flight from Arequipa to Juliaca

2. Copacabana, Bolivia

3. Church in Copacabana

4. What kind of snack is that

5. More at the church

Should we go to another country today or not? Eva and I debated as to whether or not we should try to make Bolivia on the same day as leaving Arequipa. We also debated as to whether or not we should even go. We wanted to go, but weren't sure if we needed a visa or not. We had two guide books, one in Dutch and one in English. One of them told us Belgian's needed a visa and one said they did not. Also I had seen on-line that Americans would soon need one for Bolivia. Thank you George Bush. We'll see if my brother is reading these blogs, as he surely won't resist commenting on that if he is. Any way, we decided to go.

We had a morning flight from Arequipa to Juliaca which is about an hour from Lake Titicaca. Just out of the airport, we jumped into a combi skipping the town of Juliaca and heading straight for Puno. Puno is the main Peruvian city on the Lake. The lake is billed as the highest navigable lake in the world.

"Lake Titicaca is the world's highest lake navigable to large vessels, lying at 12500 feet (3810 m) above sea level in the Andes Mountains of South America"

In Puno we got in another combi to the Bolivian border. It was about a two hour ride, and Eva had to fight most of the way for room for both of her butt cheeks. There was a large woman seated next to her in a very crowded mini van, and they had a battle of the butts for well over an hour. Eva was out gunned in the butt department and lost the war. Eventually we made it to the border town and another squabble ensued. The driver wanted to take us to the border (another 2 km) for another 1 sole each (60 cents total). But so did they local cab drivers, and they proceeded to fight over us. I felt so popular. In the end we went with the original guy and were at the border in a few minutes.

On the Peru side we had to get our passports stamped for exit, and then some drug cops called us into the office. They searched my bag and then wanted to search Eva's stuff with me out of the room. That made me a little nervous, not for her safety but that one of them may have sticky fingers, but it turned out fine. There was a VERY long line of Israelis at the Bolivian side but fortunately we soon realized that was to get out of Bolivia, and we were headed in. There were no visas needed for either of us.

We got in another Mini Van and 20 minutes later we were in the lovely Copacabana, Bolivia's main town on the lake. We thought Peru was cheap, but we quickly realized how much cheaper Bolivia is. We got settled into our hotel (that had a great lake view) had some lunch and wandered around town. We went to a nice Mexican restaurant for dinner, and really splashed out. I think our bill was under 10 USD for two. We felt we had done enough traveling for the day, and were glad to not be moving at least for the moment. More about our two days in Bolivia to come.