Day 177: Border Crossing in Style

Puno – Copacabana, Peru – La Paz, Bolivia

There are two ways to cross border from Peru to Bolivia. The longer route (8 hours) via Copacabana is more scenic yet more complicated. It involves:

Hopping on a bus in Puno
Getting off at the Peru-Bolivia border for visa
Getting back onto the bus to head to Copacabana
Getting off for an hour in Copacabana
Changing bus to Bolivian’s bus
Hopping off that bus for a 5 minute boat ride across Titicaca
Hopping back onto the bus to La Paz

Sounds awfully complicated, but it really wasn’t too bad. The hour stop in Copacabana was a treat. Located by the other end of Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian site, Copacabana has a lot of nice little streets with cafe and souvenir shops. Loads of hippy backpackers can be found here. I wonder why. Perhaps, it’s similar to the case of Morroco’s Chefchaouen? (Where weed is cultivated)

On my ride to La Paz, I sat next to a Natalie Portman’s lookalike, whose name is also Natalie. She’s from Australia and she’s travelling with her boyfriend Ben. Very nice couple and I ended up tagging along with them to the hostel since we all plan to head to the same place.

Our hostel, Wild Rover, turned out to be a party hostel. It’s owned by a German-Irish guy and the moment you step into it, you feel like you’re in Ireland or Britain. Not sure how much I like it but it’s a good place to meet people and get tons of info.