We had a late start after Tim went to buy a new set of tyres more suitable to the terrain. He gave our old ones to the man at the tyre shop. Let's hope these are more reliable! The outskirts of La Paz were awful, but then we were very excited by the first glimpses of Lake Titicaca and memories of long-ago geography lessons. As we all learned, it is the highest navigable lake in the world and we took a ferry across a narrow part of it.
Our first view of Lake Titicaca.
The ferry across the lake was on a log raft vessel, taking one car at a time. Luckily we didn't all arrive at once!
The Control on the ship informed us that the hotels had been overbooked and we would have to stay elsewhere. For once, we should have been in a good hotel - the Libertador - so we were not pleased. William Brown was there to give us 'compensation' of $100!! He had a handful of $100 bills and was handing them out to everyone who came to the control. We learnt later that many people did not get anything, so we were one of the 'lucky ones'!
We then had to leave our cars near the Yavari and take taxis to our new, more basic, hotels. Ours was actually quite pleasant and had heating, which most of them didn't have. It was quite a cold evening. We went to dinner at La Casona and had excellent local trout and listened to music from Puno music students. We bought their CD! It wasn't a bad stay after all, although we felt a bit cheated, but, when we heard that Bahram, one of the men travelling with Ahmad (American/Iranian) in the Chevy Suburban, had been mugged last night at a cashpoint, we felt we had nothing to complain about.
Total driving distance today was 206 miles.
The ferry across the lake was on a log raft vessel, taking one car at a time. Luckily we didn't all arrive at once!
Another puncture repair!
The border between Bolivia and Peru. One of the border guards!!
We crossed the border into Peru after a town called Copacabana, but unfortunately there was a diversion which took us along a rough track till we reached the Bolivian customs, then finally on to the Peruvian side. The whole procedure took us about and hour, but we later found out that others earlier had taken 3 hours. We saw a llama spit at Paul Marsh and he spat back at it.
We didn't arrive in Puno, our next halt, until after dark (once again) and had to go first to a reception on board an old ship, the Yavari, which was being restored by an English couple. The restoration of the ship had been featured on British TV, although we had never heard of it. They showed us round and obviously were hoping for donations, which some people gave.
The Yavari on Lake Titicaca.
We didn't arrive in Puno, our next halt, until after dark (once again) and had to go first to a reception on board an old ship, the Yavari, which was being restored by an English couple. The restoration of the ship had been featured on British TV, although we had never heard of it. They showed us round and obviously were hoping for donations, which some people gave.
The Yavari on Lake Titicaca.
The Control on the ship informed us that the hotels had been overbooked and we would have to stay elsewhere. For once, we should have been in a good hotel - the Libertador - so we were not pleased. William Brown was there to give us 'compensation' of $100!! He had a handful of $100 bills and was handing them out to everyone who came to the control. We learnt later that many people did not get anything, so we were one of the 'lucky ones'!
We then had to leave our cars near the Yavari and take taxis to our new, more basic, hotels. Ours was actually quite pleasant and had heating, which most of them didn't have. It was quite a cold evening. We went to dinner at La Casona and had excellent local trout and listened to music from Puno music students. We bought their CD! It wasn't a bad stay after all, although we felt a bit cheated, but, when we heard that Bahram, one of the men travelling with Ahmad (American/Iranian) in the Chevy Suburban, had been mugged last night at a cashpoint, we felt we had nothing to complain about.
Total driving distance today was 206 miles.
