Planet Bolivia

Planet Bolivia. If Peru was third world, than Bolivia must be the forth world. Almost from the moment we entered we got the Bolivian special experience. We crossed the border with the bus from Puno in the Peruvian side of the lake Titikaka to Copacabana in the Bolivian side. We looked for a ferry that will take us to Isla del Sol - an island next to the shores of Copacabana. Only after we bought the tickets, we discovered that there are no ferries to the island because of the stormy weather. We managed to get on board of another ferry, a local one, which of course took us to the wrong part of the Island. While most of the tourists arrive in a village in the central part, we got to the north. The village we got to looked like a very cold, laid back fisherman village and we did find a place to sleep, but what about eating? We searched until we found something that looked like a restaurant, but not from the usual type where you can order food but from the type where they tell you "come back later!" all the time. They didn't look as if they where really keen to sell something that day, so we had to spend the time till then freezing outside.

While waiting for this "later" to come, we went touring the small village, passing on the way small group of sheep and enjoying the tender sound of techno music. TECHNO MUSIC??? Shouldn't this be a quiet Bolivian island? Well, in our planet Bolivia, there is a coexistence between sheep and party people. Two minutes from the village, on the beach there was a party. The electronic music sound joined with the sound of the sheep and gave the day the necessary bizarre ending.
We were still hungry so we went back to the restaurant to see if "later" has arrived. At 7 in the evening, at last, our interest (hunger) and their interest (money) finally met and we got our (quite delicious) dinner. We went to sleep early that day in our special bed covered with Dora sheets in a mud hut that was our home for the day.
On the next morning we went hiking in the northern part of Isla del Sol, getting a really nice view on Lake Titikaka. When we got back and wanted to take the boat to Copacabana the problems started. In a small village, which is totally depended on its boats, you might have thought that getting real information about departure times will be easy. But in planet Bolivia nothing is really easy. Everyone has it's own opinion (never facts in Bolivia, only opinions...) about the times and whether there is boat at all. At the end we took a boat to another village, and from there the service van to Copacabana, just to find out that there are no buses to La Paz, because of the wind. What does the wind has to do with a bus drive? Well, in order to get from Copacabana to La Paz you have to cross a small strip of Lake Titikaka. There is no bridge, although the government wanted to build one. The locals objected, and why shouldn't they? Each of them has its own boat that can take some paying costumers across the lake, or a bathtub-like platform that can carry buses and cars. The view of the swinging from side to side on the unstable platform is really something else. That is why the whole passage is blocked when there is wind. We waited in Copacabana few hours until the crossing was opened and took a minivan to La Paz.

On the main road near La Paz we saw another Bolivian genius idea. They were just marking the marks on the road and didn't want the drivers to step on them, so they put medium size rocks in the middle of the road. The drivers, of course, accidentally hit those stones, spreading them all over the road and turning the highway into a dangerous obstacle for the other drivers. We got to La Paz at night. At the next morning, La Paz looked pleasant and we began to think we hallucinated everything because of the Malaria peels we were taking. But the real nightmare was still to come...