Into Bolivia

This morning we made it to La Paz in good time, despite the road blocks and the over all hassle of getting here. There are strikes going on in Bolivia, mostly around La Paz, so many of the roads are blocked and none of the regular buses are running. We knew this last night, so we were packed and waiting for transport at 5 am in the main square of Copacabana, a little beach town just across the boarder from Peru. We got into a collectivo, which is basically bigger than a minivan with about 15 seats in it but they will cram over 20 people in, no problem. All gear gets put up on the top of the van, which means that someone needs to climb up and unload each time we had to change collectivos. It was pretty interesting. We took our first one to Tiquina, where we had to take the tiniest motor boat across the lake to another town and all of this was before dawn. We boarded another collectivo which took us as far as the road block--we then had to walk through it and board another collectivo on the other side, which thankfully took us all the way to La Paz. We had had a pretty full day by the time we arrived at our hostal at 9:30, but that did not stop us from spending the whole day walking around and shopping--this place is so cheap!!

Our time in Copacabana was short but sweet. We had no problems crossing over into Bolivia from Peru, and the town is a cute little beach town with the aspirations of being a resort town. We went to the Isla del Sol one day and got to see some of the Inca ruins and hike from the northern end to the southern end. They are discovering ruins underwater around the island which is pretty cool. The lake is so blue and with the high islands it really reminded me of the Mediterranean.

Tomorrow we are going to go mountain biking in the greater La Paz area, we are really excited!! I have to update this better, because I still have to write about our hike through the Salkantay valley and into Machu Picchu, it was incredible. Soon!