Our Great Adventure: Copacabana Day 260 05/06/2015

Well last night's pizzas might have been tasty but they can't have been too healthy as both of us were up many times in the night with diarrhoea. When the alarm went at 0600, we were still feeling very ropey and Di was sick once as well. We skipped breakfast, had some imodium, hoping this would see us through the 4 hour bus journey and waited in reception for our bus. As well as stomach pains, we both had banging headaches as we were both dehydrated but not wanting to drink any water, which is not too clever at this altitude! We boarded our bus which was freezing and went to half a dozen other hotels/hostals picking up passengers. We then went to La Paz's main bus terminal to swap buses onto a more comfortable one (we kept the same pre assigned seat numbers) and waited to depart of 0800. During this time we had to pay the departure tax of 2B$ each and as is typical in Bolivia the bus set off at 0825. The buses heating was not working (we were awaiting the sun to rise above the hills) and to our concern the driver advised the toilet was for liquids only! Simon did have to go enroute but was still ill so met the toilet criteria! After ascending the valley out of La Paz we drove through El Alto, which Simon eloquently described as a "miserable, shit pit" with half finished roads, half finished houses, fumes, people everywhere and so much rubbish it was disgusting. We had to make at least 2 diversions off the main road through the dusty, unsealed backstreets, the first as the road was dug up and the second was due to it being blocked by people striking from a nearby factory, with burning tyre smoke discolouring the jet blue sky. On the second detour the 52 seat bus nearly got struck with the driver having to put lots of rocks to enable the bus to get out of a muddy hole; all the passengers were very relieved to say the least as not sure would want to be immobile there for any period of time - felt like we would be in a jungle surrounded by hungry lions! We eventually got out of El Alto and the countryside became much less arid, with a huge plain to our left and to our right the snow capped mountains - proper picture postcard stuff. There are 2 routes from La Paz to Copacabana, one involving going through Peru and the other meaning we need to take a short ferry ride to stay in Bolivia. (I would recommend you look at a map of the border between the 2 countries at Lake Titicaca to show a great example of how "bonkers" man's borders are!). We had to alight the bus to get on the small passenger ferries (Simon's Dad's dingy is bigger) which went when 20+ people were onboard. The 2B$ fare per person was good value as the 5 minute journey had great panoramas including what can only be described as a raft a couple of hundred metres away carrying our bus across. There was a lot of vessels between to two villages, San Pablo de Tiquina and San Pedro de Tiquina and after arriving at the latter we had our ID checked (you could sail there from Peru I suppose), headed across the waterfront, with a fiesta in full flow in the plaza and waited for our bus. The 30 minute journey across the narrow peninsula to Copacobana was very pretty, with the lake appearing on both sides, but we were both still feeling quite unwell so we were glad when we got there. Our hotel for the night was only 400m away but all uphill so we lugged our bags up and checked in. The place is lovely and has great views across the harbour. We decided then that after having 2 next nights on Isla del Sol, we would come back here and extend our stay from 1 to 3 nights. We also up graded to the suite right at the top of the hotel as it was only an extra 13USD per night to do so and at 55USD still in our budget. Whilst still not feeling well we walked back to the harbour, to determine the bus prices and times to Cusco for the 11th and what time was the ferry tomorrow. As it was 1330 and you don't need to prebook, we decided to sort it in the morning after checking out and hopefully feeling better and so after a glass of coca cola we went back up to the hill to the hotel. Alongside the many buildings of the hotel was a lovely sunny garden, which noting had hammocks was a "no brainer" for us to doze in the warmth, in an effort to recuperate.