Cusco to Copacabana, Bolivia...if you don't ask...they don't tell

First off, the intro to Source Code has been on repeat for the past 2 hours waking me up in the wee morning on my bus ride to Mendoza. For some reason they like to wake everyone up and let us know its morning by playing some action packed movie or with some naturalistic movie with dolphins, birds and every animal you could think of. Both quite annoying and no idea why they need to wake us up. Regardless, the bus driver may need some attention or its some cruel joke all the locals are used to. If I had to choose it would be the dolphins. In this particular case,  I think I memorized the intro to my new favorite movie:

            Explosion, explosion, fire exploding, main girl actor says, “I listened to your advice…thanks…it was good advice”…violin playing back and forth rapidly.

I asked the driver to change the movie, I think he forgot. Now my lack of 12 hours of sleep on this bus is making me get up and write. This story below could be filled with action so make sure you have a weird violin playing with loud train like noises and explosions while you read this. Game on Source Code.

The title above says Cusco to Copacabana but there was a small town in between that had a small one night stays for the gang (Norwegians, Sweden, Canadian, Aussie and ‘merica). This town was in fact on Lake Titicaca but on the Peruvian side. We all thought this would be an awesome lake town, but it was filled with bad Chinese food and awesome cepticon transformer tuk tuks. The weather out here gets a bit colder so the tuk tuks are fully wrapped with armor to protect its clients from the extreme climate. I applaud these locals…truly.

Anyways, we stayed in this unknown town (forgot to copy and paste this info in my brain) for one night. We found this pretty awesome hostel that had a great homelike feeling. This was mainly because the homeowners also stayed here. This was also the best part of the city. Like I said above, we got into town and desperately needed food. Our solution was next door and it was Chinese. Not to be raciest or anything but being in South America the Chinese food couldn’t be bad at all. Nonetheless, a Chinese owned, Spanish-speaking family was another curve ball in the field. We all ordered, spoke in Spanish, and also literally pointed with our index fingers on the menu what each person wanted.  The waiter agreed and wrote our large order down.

Bo-na-pa-teet. One by one our food came out of the kitchen. The waiter would say out loud what the food was and no one would claim any of it. Each order kept coming out was wrong. By the end of eight plates, only a few of the plates were actually correct. We were all dying of hunger, so we complained only for a few minutes and then went to town and had our grub fest. Yes, this word was just used very appropriately.

After we ate, each person noticed that the wrong orders, were in fact not written down wrong, but they also decided to add the cost to the real order on the menu. Thus, each person would be paying much more money (in theory). Luckily, were smart and caught this mistake. This ventured into an argument about us paying more and how we wouldn’t do it. Just saying, some establishments charge 50 cents for refills. Just saying. Well we one, left, and headed back to the hostel to watch some stories. Night ended.

Next day, got up, sort of walked around until we found some breakfast joint. Ordered some eggs and received eggs, rice, a large steak, bread and coffee. Incredibly large meal for breakfast and felt like I was going to die after this was in my stomach. All I wanted was a few eggs but it was the same price and can’t say no to stuff that is sort of free.

Me, Chad and Arve got back to the hostel and woke up the others. We mentioned how this town sort of blows and how we should leave. This is where Copacabana comes into play.

Around this complaining period we, as the largest group I’ve ever traveled with, decided to move to the lake town of Copacabana. Copacabana was on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and would be a simple journey of a few hours to the border.

We packed up, quickly, and headed to the bus station. An hour later we hoped on a bus to Bolivia. Everyone on board was good except for me. I was an American and needed $135 for a visa and the driver warned me that the border had no ATM and needed to take money out here. Good thing too cause the ATM at this bus station rejected my card. Luckily, I had some great new pals and they said they would help a brother out.

The scenery driving from the unknown town to Copacabana was pretty wild. Lake Tatty next to us the whole time, and monster climbing rocks on the other side. These rocks were large Joshua Tree like formations, but heavy winds over the past million years gave them a sideways hat feel. They had flattened clay like steps that would jet up like a pyramid, but you couldn’t hike up them like stairs. You would have to rock climb up a section, have a picnic, and then hike up the next section. These crazy rocks were all along the border and were much more interesting then the flat ocean that had no sign of swell coming in.

Finally arrived to the border. Bus driver said to hurry up and they would meet us on the other side. About an hour later and me being the last one (visa applications, free cola from the customs and high fives) we blasted out of there. Only issue, the whole gang was waiting for us because the bus couldn’t get through the border. Supposedly, large protest were happening in Copacabana and cars couldn’t get through due to barricades and crazy funny locals standing in the way making sweaters. I didn’t have anytime to think except follow the gang that was yelling for my name and saying to hurry. I grabbed my surfboard and ran after them towards the sea. We climbed over fences, yelled at a few cows and hiked over some rock barracks that had barbed wire on them. Soon enough we ended up at the Lake where the rest of the bus members were. They said some boat was going to pick us all up and take us to town!

This was one great introduction to Bolivia. None of us knew where we were and no one was worried for a second. The sky was turning every color imaginable and the sun was setting over the water. The moon gave one of those large halo bubbles around itself. It was a sure sign this place was going to be cold. All of which gave us excitement about this mysterious town called Copacabana.

The boat came, but took about half an hour to figure out how to dock the thing. We finally got on board and the captain said the boat ride would take 15 minutes! But 15 minutes in South America, nonetheless Bolivia had to be longer. For some reason these people have no idea what time is. I’ve said this countless time before but time was never introduced to them in primary school. Therefore, 15 minutes could in fact be 15 minutes or 2 hours. Only time could tell.

2 hours later on top of the boat and many stories swapped we landed in Copacabana. The boat was freezing enough I had my alpaca sweater, gloves, poncho and badass cowboy hat on and was still looking for my balls. Copacabana arrived and we hoped off some sketchy wooden dock onto land. At first glance we knew this place looked special. Old colonial houses were spread out filled with coffee shops and restaurants.

We walked around, found a hostel and headed to get some food. We sat down at one amazing looking Mexican burrito shop. All of the portions looked huge and delicious. We were all very excited. Half-hour later some waiter, who saw us come in said they closed the kitchen down. Furious, we left to another joint. I’m telling you, this burrito had mashed potatoes in it and the size of the plate. It was a distant memory of San Diego burritos and was craving this badly. Next-door was some cu ant restaurant that served some amazing local fish. It was delicious but didn’t hit the spot for what we were all craving.

Bedtime happened

Next day, woke up early to work while everyone, as always gets their beauty sleep. The more people I’m with, the earlier I have to get up to work because more activities are presented to the table and must do. That morning I found this great coffee shop that jetted fuel into my blood stream like I was back in ‘Nam. Ask my Mom or Dad; they’ll know what kind of adrenaline rush I’m talking about is. Anyways, the girls came down later and mentioned some island tour around the Lake that leaves at 8:30. Grabbed some more coffee and we headed to the dock. Supposedly, this was where the sun was born…on this island! Wow. Another 3-hour boat ride and we made it to this weird island. Though long, the Andes were in the distant and you could see more lord of the rings mountains in the distant. The more I see the Andes the less I belief the movie was shot in New Zealand. There is some serious competition here.

We landed on the island and walked around to some ruins that were quite weak compared to Machu Picchu but still cool. This island was where the Incas started so that’s pretty cool. Ate lunch on the other side of the island (where we had to pay to enter, classic move tours, ya bastards) and had to give some money to this random gypsy who played guitar in front of us. Never asked for this dude to play in front of us but he insisted we were rich and we had to pay. Fuck that guy. I did get a funny photo of him looking at my camera, as he knew I didn’t approve of his message.

Okay, long day was over and we landed back into town. This time we were on a mission to eat this burrito. The gang headed directly there. Burrito shop closed due to protest. Today was some city wide organized day to close all of the restaurants, but we were on the island were the sun was born and didn’t know this information. Now were more pissed than yesterday. It was like your kid did something wrong, your not mad your just disappointed. That’s what we felt. We moved onto the next restaurant and decided to talk about how we could get out of Copacabana (due to strikes). No taxis came in and all of the boats were shut down unless you wanted to go to that weird island. The only solution was to hike out of town back to the original Bolivian border we started on. This hike was about 15 km and up and down all of the roads, plus shortcuts people told us about on the way. It was a task that wouldn’t be easy with my rice bag, backpack and heavy surfboard. All of which, was the only option.

Next day, got up, went back to the awesome coffee shop with the crew and discussed our game plan. The owner started to lock his doors and said the locals were getting a big angry and not to get in there way. Today was a huge protest day and everyone would be in the streets doing funny protest things. It reminded me of something Eugene, Oregon would do, except lots of grandmas with a bag of culture walking around. We gathered all of our stuff up, quickly and headed out of town. While this was going on, behind us was the whole town protesting and walking towards us (the city). We escaped this by a matter of minutes. I don’t think anything happened but got a few rad photos on the way. Good old journalism at its finest!

The long journey began up and down long hills. Some of the girls were complaining and re-assured them that I was in more pain with all of my gear. Some of the locals were also leaving so the new, old, modern and old fashioned collided as we all hiked up this hill. It was pretty cool. On the way, multiple DIY barricades were set up. These barricades consisted of cut down trees and like I said earlier cowboys and grandmas knitting sweaters and hats to pass the time. I gave then a nice western nod with my hat and posted up like the paparotsi and snapped a few photos with thumbs up. Some other reporters with filming the situation and saw all of us walking by and started to film us. I gave them the classic peace sign and they were stoked! Peace is in fact what they were after. Well-done Sean!

At this point I’m huffing and puffing with all of my gear. Once again, all of my good friends grabbed my board and we started to trade off carrying my luggage. These were good people I must say.

2 hours later we made it to the Bolivian border. We stamped our way out and hired a taxi to take us to the next Bolivian crossing. Walked back across this border again and made it into Bolivia. This point in my trip I get a lot of weird looks with my surfboard. Kids don’t know what it is and this particular time I took out my board just to show these curious rugrats what was under the hood. The touched it, I explained it was for the water and gave them high fives.

Found some car and hired it to drive us to La Paz, Bolivia. This drive was about 5 or more hours with a non-social driver that said it would cost each person 15 bolivianos for the ride. On the drive we got pulled over by the customs and had to get out of the car to show them our passports. All of which they weren’t interested in, but we had to cross the freeway, into some random strip of food and clothing stores, then back into the car. They were in hopes we would by some random stuff.