Sunday, May 28, 2006

The guy from the Colectur company said a taxi would pick us up at our hotel at 7:00 this morning and take us to the Copacabana-bound bus, a service included in the price of the bus ticket. So we dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:15, and at 6:45 Michael was pacing up and down the room and peering out the window with every pass ("Here comes another taxi...") and monitoring my progress. When I said I was going to go brush my teeth, he groaned and collapsed onto the bed in despair. He can't help it. Michael comes from a long line of pathologically punctual Simon men.

Michael's father jokes that Michael's grandfather is ready the night before. Michael jokes that his father is ready two hours before. And then there's Michael. Right now he's only running about fifteen minutes to half an hour early, which I will admit is mature and prudent, but it's totally getting worse.

Poor fidgeting Michael had to wait until 6:58 before we finally went downstairs but our taxi had just arrived and all was fine. There was another couple already in the taxi, also going to Bolivia. She was from D.C. and he was from the Netherlands and they had met at Spanish school in Cuzco. I sat in the back with them, and Michael took the front passenger seat. There was a short delay while the taxi driver attempted to bulldoze through a fleet of trici-taxis (similar to bicycle rickshaws), calling the laughing drivers a bunch of llamas, and then we were on our way.

We began the usual backpacker formula conversation. Where are you coming from? How did you like it? Where are you going next? How long are you "out for?" This is required conversation when you first meet another backpacker, and only afterwards can you move on to other topics. It's like reading that same paragraph about how Elizabeth and Jessica had wide-set blue-green eyes or how Encyclopedia Brown's real name was Leroy before you can get to the story.

"How long did you stay in Cuzco?" the girl asked us.

"About two weeks, I guess."

"Oh, yeah, not much time. I was living in Cuzco for three weeks but then we got bored, so we decided to take a little trip to Copacabana and then go back."

They had arrived in Puno yesterday and had not been affected by the protests. We told them about our thirty hour protest saga.

"You should take night busses," she advised. "We never take day busses because that's when you have problems."

"Yeah," I said.

Later, in seats three and four of the Collectur bus, after the engine had started and our compañeros de taxi sitting a few rows back couldn't hear us, I leaned over to Michael and whispered to him. It was a tough question I had to ask, but I feel strongly that Michael needs to be aware of all my flaws and failings and moments of pettiness so that he's not all mad and surprised later.

"Michael," I whispered. "When that girl said we should have taken a night bus because day busses have problems..."

"Oh, yeah!" he exclaimed. "Don't you know who we are? You can't give us any bus advice! What's it been now, three hundred hours?"

Whew. He was with me. We spent an enjoyable few minutes tearing apart the idea that this girl who "lived" in Cuzco for three weeks should be giving us advice on busses, and talking about how there were plenty of night busses stacked up behind us on the road anyway.

"And I bet she wasn't even from D.C." Michael said. (He grew up in Richmond.) "She sounded like Falls Church." I didn't know what that meant, but it sounded cutting. Especially in the beginning when I thought he said she sounded "false church" which I thought was a cool phrase for someone who's faking the funk. There are a lot of false church people who say they're from New York when really they're from Hoboken or something.

So we tore the poor girl to pieces. She was not a bad person, and for all we know could have lived in the White House itself, but... there you go. We were only joking around, but it's good to be able to joke and not have your boyfriend think less of you.

The border crossing was a breeze. The bus guys had given us customs forms to fill out, so we had those ready. And thanks to our Belgian friends, Ruben and Katrien, who forge ahead and send back the good tips, we knew that the fancy money exchange place that the bus stops at is a big ripoff. (They lost about eight dollars in the exchange.)

They suggested walking up the street to the ladies with tables to get a better rate, but I chose not to bother to change money at all, just yet. Michael changed seven dollars at the bad place, thinking we didn't have enough time to shop around. But fyi, if you wind up at that border crossing, don't worry - you have plenty of time. After the exchange, you're supposed to walk across the street to Peruvian immigration and they budget lots of time for all that.

We stamped out of Peru with no problems and then walked up the road and through a big gate and into Bolivia, where we lined up to get stamped in. There was a small office with three or four different immigration officials, each at a corner desk. My guy asked me how much time I wanted. Ninety days would have been good but I didn't want to appear greedy, so I asked for sixty. No. He frowned and waved that idea away like a mosquito and gave me a thirty-day stamp.

Because he had the power to deport me on the spot I did not say what I was thinking which was, "Well crap, why did you bother asking me then?" Now we'll have to run around and try to get our time extended. We haven't spent much more than a month in any country since Mexico, but we plan to do a little volunteer work at an animal refuge in Bolivia. And with that and Uyuni and all the other stuff Bolivia has to offer, we'll definitely go over a month. Pain in the neck. Michael's guy also gave him thirty days, but at least he didn't ask first what Michael wanted.

The bus had followed us into Bolivia and was waiting for us to climb back in with our measly thirty-day stamps. Our destination, Copacabana, a small town on the edge of Lake Titicaca, was only eight kilometers away. Once in the sleepy town, we had no trouble spotting the hotel that the Ruben and Katrien had recommended. "Los Andes, A BIG orange hotel," their e-mail had said, and there it was. They'd run all over town looking at places and this was where they'd ended up. They were right, it was a gem.

There are hotel rooms available in Copacabana for a couple of bucks, but if you want to splurge and pay a whopping ten dollars (80 Bolivianos) to stay in a really nice place, stay at Los Andes. The room the Belgians had stayed in was occupied, so we took the mirror image room on the other side of the hotel (room 37) and it had an amazing panoramic view of the lake. And just as the Belgians had promised, our room was like a suite, with a little sitting area and creaky wooden floors. (The smaller rooms in between the end rooms are very nice too, with Juliet balconies, but they are not really suite-like.)

It was only noon. The trip had been ridiculously easy. We sat in our little sitting area and ate the olives and cheese we'd bought yesterday in Puno and thought good thoughts about the Belgians.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 301.5

 

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Some advice from someone in Puno, Peru.

Welcome to Bolivia!

Ooh, fancy hotel room. Los Andes, Copacabana.

Lake Titicaca, view from Los Andes hotel, Copacabana.

Lakefront eateries, Copacabana.

Paddleboats, Copacabana.

Boats, Copacabana.

Waterfront, Copacabana.