Hola from Bolivia!

After a morning of relaxation and recovery from the strenuous trek, Dad and I flew from Cusco to Lake Titicaca. We were not too impressed with Puno (the largest city along the lake). The lake was not very scenic around Puno and the main attractions are several ïslands (some floating) where native Peruvians sing, dance and basically do anything possible to get money from you. As fun as the floating islands would have been, we elected to buy bus tickets to Bolivia...Copacabana to be exact!

It was about a 3.5 hour bus ride and things at the border went relatively smoothly as well. Upon arrival, we hopped onto quite possibly the slowest floating vessel still in use and visited the Isle del sol (island of the sun) where the Incas had built small structures and ultimately named the lake. Sorry for not having more specific information but the island was lacking signs, brochures, maps etc... So basically we were flying blind trying to figure out what we were looking at.

Things got interesting once we returned to Cocacabana. It all started yesterday when we used a taxi that our hostel booked to go the 45 minutes into Puno. We paid the taxi driver and thought everything was settled. This morning, we checked out of the hostel no problem and caught our bus to Bolivia. When we returned from Isle del sol, we were surprised to find the hostel owner from Puno in front of our new hostel with photocopies of our passports saying he forgot to charge us for the taxi. We calmly explained that we´d paid the driver. When he continued to hastle us I was sneaky and managed to get the passport copies and receipts away from him and told him to go settle things with his taxi driver. My Dad and I pretty much are wanted men. A guy from Peru has chased us into Bolivia. We thought we were done with this guy but after eating dinner, we returned to our hostel only to find out that the guy working there had been approached on five different occasions by this crazy guy from Peru and wanted to get the extra copy of our room key. Fortunately the hostel worker said no way and the guy left. Needless to say, my Dad and I are expecting to run into this guy tomorrow either at our hostel or on the bus. I´ll be sure to keep you all posted. Please don´t worry as we don´t feel like we´re in any danger but are just shocked that this guy has driven over 3 hours into a neighboring country to collect $30 he thinks we owe him. I´ll keep everyone posted!