Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The bus to La Paz left at 1:00 p.m. It was not a great bus. It was grubby and smelly, with discarded food wrappers all over the floor, and the springs in my seat were collapsed, but what can you do? Anyway, it's only a four hour ride. Our bags were tied to the top of the bus, something we haven't seen in a long time, since Nicaragua, I think.

My hair attracted a good few stares, but I was busy staring at the hair of a white (looking) guy who'd attached fake dreads to his hair. Not like those weird novelty knitted caps with the fake dreads hanging down (which you can buy in Panajachel, Guatemala for some obscure reason) but actual individual dreads made of yarny black fibers tied to different hunks of his own brown hair.

Once that guy moved out of my sphere of vision, the bus ride became uneventful and I settled into a nice, comfortable half-lidded zone as we drove around Lake Titicaca. Then the bus stopped. We were in some kind of little town, and we were stopped in the middle of the street near the lake. All the other passengers got up and started getting off the bus.

Michael and I looked at each other with no idea what was going on. We figured maybe it was some kind of rest stop. After such a short distance, we didn't feel like moving, but when every single person was gone, we thought maybe we'd better get off too. We were wandering around looking at the snack stands and whatnot when we realized that none of our fellow passengers was around.

And then we realized that our bus was being maneuvered onto a big wooden raft. Finally I remembered reading something about this in someone else's blog - the bus goes across an arm of the lake on a raft and we need to get onto a boat ourselves and meet it on the other side. So we looked around and found the boat ticket office by the water, bought tickets, and boarded a small motorboat waiting at the dock.

Michael and I sat across from the fake-dreads guy. The boatman was waiting for more passengers before he took off and we sat there for a long time. I would have worried, but I could see our bus still making its slow way across the river, so I knew it wasn't leaving without us.

At last we were full. A few tourists, some locals, some buckets of fish, and we set off across the river. On the other side, our bus came lumbering down some mysterious side street to pick us up in the middle of a square and we were safely reunited. Our backpacks were still there and my seat was still collapsed.

It seemed that Michael and I were the only ones who didn't know what was happening with the whole lake crossing thing. It was not mentioned in our guidebook. The bus staff did not make an announcement. The other passengers just knew, and none of them nudged us to help us out either. Most of them made it across the lake on the first boat.

After that came some nice scenery as we wound up into the yellow-brown mountains surrounding the bright blue lake, and then I fell asleep. Even after we entered La Paz and I should have been paying attention, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I dozed until we finally stopped on some random street and had to get off the bus.

We got a taxi to a hostel chosen from the book, but it was full. We wandered around looking for someplace else, but La Paz is expensive and we were yikesed out of a few spots. The Belgians had sent us a tip, but we weren't sure where to find their place. A man selling a tray of fruit'n'jello confections tried to help us out, but didn't know of anything cheaper than what we'd already seen. Finally we ended up at a place called Hotel Alem.

It's kind of an interesting room, all grubby carpet and harsh florescent lighting, with a window looking out into the hallway. We may try to move if we find something better, or at least cheaper. But for now it has a certain traveling salesman charm with its stained duvet and sixties-style furniture.

We are in the "Witches' Market" section of the capital and it's all very hectic. Not the worst we've seen, but we're a little tired of it. Even sleepy little Copacabana had its pockets of hectic. And LaPaz is even higher and colder than Cuzco. Lugging our packs around while looking for a room was a little tiring. We'll probably chill for a couple of days and not worry about doing much. The good news is we found some "comida arabe" for dinner. Hummus, yum.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 305.50

 

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Our bus drives onto the raft-thingy en route to La Paz.

Progress.

Boarding the ferry to meet our bus on the other side.

Our bus floats across Lake Titicaca.