The 2018 Blog / September 21, 2018
Alright Y’all, I don’t know how many of y’all actually stuck with me this far but I started this blog to create another way to remember a once in a lifetime trip to South America. So with that, I’m going to finish what I started with five more blogs straight from my horrible memory, so we’ll see how this goes! Also this is the first time actually writing these blogs on a computer, so I can’t wait for this not to crash on me every twelve seconds!
About a month and a half ago, we left off with the Salkantay Trek in Cusco, Peru. So what did we do after that? We took our twelve hour overnight bus to the world famous Lake Titicaca! And no Eric… There are no sharks in this lake (sadly). Anyways this is our journey navigating the highest elevated lake in the world!
First stop: Puno, Peru only about two hours North of the Peruvian, Bolivian border! I’m not going to lie I was pretty excited for Puno and Lake Titicaca. I mean, how could I not be excited for a place that my sister thought was a fictional place until I told her that I actually went there?!?! But sadly, the entirety of Lake Titicaca turned out to be a bit of a let down to be honest. Heres the story of our rollercoaster of emotions when visiting titicaca and our journey across the bolivian border!:
Woke up on the bus when we finally arrived in Puno and got on a ferry to check out the world famous floating islands ! I mean how cool would it be to check out the tiny floating islands that people still live on? Well… I’ll be honest it really wasn’t that cool. In fact, it was a little sad. But well get to that.
We got on the boat and it took about thirty minutes to get out to the actual island we visited. The twenty or so of us got out of the boat onto this island probably about 40 meters by 40 meters wide made only of straw and weeds, but surprisingly durable! We all gathered in a circle where our tour guide and a local woman on the island talked to us about what it was like to live on the island and go about your lives isolated from uhhh everything?!?!
Well there were about twenty people who lived on the island they stated and the kids would take a straw boat to head to their school on other little floating islands.
Now… Here’s the disappointing part. After getting the low down, they opened it up to the rest of the people on the island who basically just started begging that we buy there poorly made little blankets and trinkets. And guess what? We were stuck on this tiny island which we couldn’t get off. Worst of all? after this Sarah actually googled and looked more into these floating island people and apparently most of these people on these islands have homes on the mainland?!? They just continue to do it for tourism reasons! Which i guess makes sense because they originally just did it as safety when the incas or something were attacking them. But anyways, what a let down! The whole tour took a couple of hours and then we were back to our hostel in Puno for the rest of the day! We decided to walk around a bit and just hung out until we left for Copacabana in Bolivia the next morning!
And just like that we were finally heading off to our third country of the trip! Only after about six weeks trekking through the beautiful country of Peru we finally began to make our way to Bolivia! But not with some casualties of course. Before getting on our bus, Sarah made the mistake of trusting me with the groceries which I obviously left all our snacks and left over groceries in the lobby of the hostel before we left! ALSO, i left my mini tripod there as well. RIP
Anyways! We did eventually get to the border! You could say we were pretty nervous considering our last border crossing was a complete clusterf**k. AND this border was apparently infinitely more strict! We read things about them throwing your visa money back in your face because it wasn’t * crisp * enough! So nervously, I handed over my passport (making sure that we got our entry and exit stamp this time!) and without any question or even looking at me I was stamped and ready to go!
ummmmm WHAT?!?! Did I miss something?!?!? Was it really that easy?
Yes. Yes it was.
And just like that! Your favorite Halfies were in Bolivia! And super close to the amazing beach town of Copacabana!
Alright, so just like that we were in Bolivia! And with a new country meant a new currency! So we walked around, found some bolivianos and did what Copacabana is famous for!
Trucha Frita!
And that means fried trout for all you non Spanish speakers which includes me! I would include a picture of our delicious Trucha Frita BUUTTTTTT well my phones gone. Sooooo that means all my pictures taken on my phone is gone as well. RIP Iphone 7. You will be missed. And Yes i did lose my phone on this trip, no i did not lose it here, but to find out how I guess you’ll just have to keep reading the new blogs!!! #clickbait.
Afterwards, we walked to our hostel that we thought we booked and turns out that we didn’t…. some kind of miscommunication. SOOOO we walked around and went to about five different hostels until we finally found a hostel with an opening for us for tonight!
I then got to walk around and enjoy the beach town as well as hike up this massive mountain in which i got very lost coming down. Here’s some pictures from the journey!
After that we enjoyed a nice sunset dinner while of course enjoying none other than some Trucha Frita! Ughhh it was so delicious I already miss it! We then went back to bed and woke up early to check out the famous Isla Del Sol! This was the supposed birthplace to the sun and the Incan dynasty and is well known and recommended as a place to go to in Bolivia. So we took a LOOOOONG SLOWWWWW boat ride to the island from Copacabana which took us about an hour or two, I honestly can’t remember. But we then finally arrived to the birthplace of the sun and basically we were given about an hour and a half to check out the island and do a little loop walk where they pick us up on the other side. And let me tell you…..! It was honestly super boring. I dont know if it’s just the fact that we have seen so many unreal landscapes, the blue sky and blue lake really just wasn’t doing it for us. But i don’t know, You can be the judge of this.
We then got back and got on the bus to arrive to La Paz! We got popcorn, some great sausage sandwiches, crossed the lake on boat, and after a few hours finally made it to La Paz where I will talk about that in the next blog! Anyways, thanks for sticking around and I will see you in the next one!
Originally published September 21, 2018 / See the Lake Titicaca gallery
