Copacabana, Bolivia.
Our journey started by catching a short bus to Copacabana, a small town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. We checked into our hotel and caught the next boat to Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) where we hoped to see Inca ruins and beautiful scenery. We took the 1.30pm boat and expected to have a couple of hours to explore the ancient island. What they failed to tell us when we booked our ticket is that the journey takes two hours and that the return journey was at 4... giving us less than thirty minutes actually on the island! The boat was painfully slow - we probably could have swam to the island in half the time! Suffice to say, we saw little more of the island than the end of its pier.
To make matters worse, as soon as we got back on the boat, Jo became violently ill... Most of our time in Copocabana was spent in our hotel room.... at least Jo did, whilst Sam was tucking into a delicious Italian dish down the road!
Puno, Peru.
After a smooth trip through the Bolivian border (a rarity when speaking to other travellers) we were in the small Peruvian town of Puno. We didn't want to see too much of Puno as we would soon be returning here with our organised tour. This turned out to be irrelevant as Jo continued to be violently ill and our main objective was to try and get a good night's sleep before we met our tour group in Lima the next day.
Juliaca, Peru.
Feeling slightly more refreshed after a decent night's sleep, we took an hour long taxi ride to the town of Juliaca. The only reason a tourist steps foot in this town is because of its airport. The town is infamous for its criminality, black market and strikes. We had got to the airport four hours early to ensure that traffic wouldn't be an issue and we were all set for our short flight to Lima. Just as we were about to board the plane we were told that the flight was cancelled, the airport was shut and that we needed to retrieve our bags and leave... The local teachers (who have been on strike for two months) decided that this was the day to storm the airport and start fires around the runway!
All the passengers then charged at the the information desk to demand an explanation and an alternative way of getting to Lima. We were then told that if we gave our tickets to a Taca representative we would have a ticket for the next flight to Lima from Arequipa - a city four and a half hours away. In blind faith we handed over our boarding passes and jumped in a minibus headed for Arequipa. Due to the strike we had to leave the airport via the back entrance and slowly made our way across the bumpiest 'road' either of us had ever had the pleasure of using!
Time was of the essense as we only had five hours before the flight left for Lima, so naturally we stopped for twenty minutes to change buses half way through. Our bus wasn't filled to capacity, so they put us on one that would be, ensuring an uncomfortable remainder of the journey!
Arequipa, Peru.
We arrived at the airport and dashed to the check-in desk to explain our situation. We weren't that close to the front of the queue and began to panic when passengers from our original flight were being told to wait and leave the queue. It quickly transpired that there was not nearly enough room for all of us to get on the flight... Those in front of us were being turned away and told to add their names to a waiting list. We began to panic as there was a good chance we weren't going to make it out of Arequipa anytime soon.
We patiently remained in line and our expectation was that we were going to be adding our names to the growing list. For some reason the check-in staff were a lot friendlier to us and asked us to wait whilst they searched their system. Ten minutes later they found two spare seats and asked if we would be OK sitting away from each other. This was the least of our concerns as we grabbed our boarding passes, shoved our bags onto the conveyor belt and ran for the departure lounge!
It quickly became apparent that we were two of only eight people from the forty people that had had taken minibuses from Juliaca to make the last flight to Lima. Someone, somewhere was smiling on us and wanted us to go on our Absolute Peru tour!
After three days, three buses, two taxis, a boat and a flight, we had made it to Lima!
*Naturally we didn't take too many pictures of this journey.
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