La Paz
28/7 Sightseeing, including getting excited about shops selling hardwood flooring, and the price of a sack of potatoes.
Ivette & I are doing own thing for the day, so I take the opportunity to catch up on some flirting. I pop into tourist information and chat to the bored but pretty young girl working there, and collect some useful information like her name, phone number, and where to buy a second-hand 4x4.
Buying a bus in Bolivia
29/7 Next day Ivette & I head off to a market out of town to look at vehicles for sale...
I spy a gas-guzzling bus for only 5 grand, it looks solid as a tank just what you need in South America. And I'd probably have lots of fun turning it into a mobile home (though maybe not mobile unless i learn some mechanics). Definitely an option if i decide to escape Europe again, though I think it'd be best done with a partner or group.
More practical maybe the open-top 4x4, I think someone was buying it while I was there (or pretending to)
Failing that there's the donkey.
But the pipe-dream would have to wait - I'd made a plan to meet some friends in Bogota in 2 weeks time.
Later I cheer myself up by visiting tourist information again, and kidnapping Silvana, the attendant. We go to a cafe and drink something traditional and purple. Chicha or Api, i guess, it's first hit on googling "traditional purple bolivian drink".
Later we meet a group of her friends, which pretty much screws my chances with her, so I decide I may as well play sociable and invite Ivette along too.
I write in my diary "i wanted to melt into Silvana's lovely lovely breasts but hard with all the people, and her need to work at 7am next day"
Most the group goes home early, working next day, so I say goodbye to Silvana with a quick snog, then move onto a club with Ivette. I'm getting drunk, dancing silly. Ivette is putting on quite a show (she's a dance teacher)
The evening becomes blurry. Another trainspotting moment - I spy a tempting dose of the drug known as feminine form, briefly talk to the owner and ask her if she wants to come home and sleep with me. This is too easy she thinks, so she plays hard to get and challenges me with a question: "What's my name?". She'd told me two minutes earlier so I had a headstart here. I utter the magic password and off we go to some grotty residencia.
We're done before dawn and each slip off our separate ways. Back at the hotel Ivette has locked me out of the room. I had left her in the club without saying goodbye, pretty rude I know, but she's a big girl and had one of Silvana's friends to chat to (he too had been hoping for some action, poor bastard). Anyway she doesn't answer my knocks at the door, nor does the hotel have a spare key. So I prepare to wait out the morning in the breakfast room. Suddenly a couple of girls emerge from a room, backpacked up and ready to leave, and in contrast to my earlier behaviour I politely ask if I can use their room since they are vacating it. I collapse onto a still-warm bed and pass out.
Copacabana
30/7 in the morning I'm worried Ivette is going to crucify me for abandonning her last night and running off with another girl, but she seems calm. Anyway we talk about it, I make my apologies, and things seem cool. I have half a mind to stay behind and try it on with Silvana, but she seemed like a nice girl and anyway momentum was moving me on.
We head onto Copacabana, not the one in Rio, but a small town on a lake called Titicaca.
I amuse myself pondering and taking photos while Ivette looks for a place for us to stay the night.
I think back to the bumpy 4x4 ride through the desert and imagine there must be a smoother way. The idea of the "wheg" comes to mind, a wheel-leg, and when I google this later I'm disappointed though not surprised to find the term already exists, though not in the application I'm thinking of. I make a note anyway, after all it's my job - at hotels I've been completing the profession box with the word "inventor", and it's printed on my business cards. Eventually I may convince myself.
Isla del Sol
31/7 catch the morning boat to "Isla del Sol" (sun island). We have a lot of fun walking across the island, and generally getting lost. The plan is to head to the northern end and find somewhere to camp.
It's getting late, and still no camp and we're out of water. Ivette is getting tired so I leave her with the bags and I head off solo in search of a spring. I head down to the coastline and follow it around looking for craggs. It's looking pretty dismal, the terrain is arid, there are no trees only scraggy bush. But eventually some algae-covered rock appears and from this the tiniest trickle of water emerges. It takes a few minutes to collect just half a bottle but it's enough, and there's a beautiful beach round the corner we can camp on. Triumphant, ug-man returns to cavewoman with water and good news.
Its getting dark so I setup tent quickly and get a fire going, which is tricky as there are no trees nearby, just some dry scrubb that burns too quickly. But there's an old peer nearby maybe used by the occasional fisherman. I'm sure they won't miss the odd loose plank. Ivette cooks up a great stew.
It's a one-person tent so pretty tight. Maybe it would have been fine if we were a couple, but we weren't. Ever since the jumping-out-of-bed-at-thought-of-one-eyed-snake incident in Northern Argentina, I'd sort of lost interest anyway. So it was a cold and unconfortable night, and I was glad when dawn broke.
One-man tent, on beach
Inca ruins, and ruined peer
Washer-woman
I'm pretty shattered and make the mistake of sleeping on the beach, forgetting we're on "Isla del Sol". I'm ready to move to the nearest village but it's an hour away and I'm knackered. Ivette anyway wants more punishment so we stay another night camping. I'm sunburnt but the night is not too bad, maybe this keeps me warm.
Return to mainland
2/8 yet again relieved to get up early, this time in some pain from the sunburn. I hobble to the village, Ivette bouncing ahead full of energy.
A floating island, and Ivette, going loco with a Llama skull I found on the beach
Back at Copacabana there happens to be a bus about to leave to Puna in Peru so I endure another 3 hours of pain, but it's my limit. Ivette, still on duracell continues directly onto Cusco so we say our goodbyes and I stay in Puna to pass out for a couple of days.
