I did my second border crossing into Bolivia from Puno on Friday 1/9 which, although went better than the first one, still left me feeling very very grumpy, angry bear!
Firstly, I was hung over and suffering from a serious lack of sleep. In the altitude of Puno, that is really not a good thing. I got into my bus at 7am, with the intention to go to the Bolivian border town of Copacabana. The 2 or so hour bus trip to the border was spent with me having a plastic bag over my face, trying not to gag (I know! Charming!). Then half an hour before arriving the bus driver comes to the back and says "Sorry, the border at Copacabana is closed due to bockades and so you can either go to La Paz (15 soles more), go back to Puno (25 soles more) or you can walk 8 km to Copacabana from the next border crossing town of Desaguadero (which was not going to be possible for me considering the weight of my bags). I was pretty pissed off to find out that the bus company had actually known about the blockades before leaving Puno too but I guess they knew that they would be able to screw money out of us tourists so it was all good for them. So this was the first hiccup.
I decided to just go to La Paz as I could always backtrack later. We arrived at the border in Desaguadero, where I had a few problems as I had lost an important paper. When I came out of immigration, my whole group had gone without me and so I got sort of lost trying to find my bus by myself on the other side. When I finally found it, the bus driver says to me "Sorry the bus is full, you cant get in"... Sooooo angry! At this point I blew my lid and started yelling at them that I had paid to go to La Paz so they had better get me there or else. They decided to put me in another bus which turned out to be a La Paz bound coletivo which pissed me off even more only because I had paid about 3 times that amount to get to La Paz in my cushy tourist bus...
Luckily I had a bunch of nice guys my age sitting next to me in my bus who I ended up chatting to for the whole time which made the trip really enjoyable along with the amazing scenery Titicaca lake lined with the Cordillera Real... I love Bolivia so far I think that it is just going to be getting better from here on in!
x
C
