So we finally left La Paz with bus (bus company Lake Titicaca, which was kind of cheap but also not very comfortable) and headed on a three hour journey on a very cramped bus, this included a boat ride over The biggest lake in South America; Lake Titicaca. It felt so, so, so nice being close to water again and getting away from the busy city.
We finally arrived to our destination; the little village of Copacobana. It's so small so we were able to walk from the bus station to our hostel, where we ended up on the top floor and had the nicest view over the gorgeous town.
The lady who owns the hostel we stayed at was soooo nice and friendly, and she said that we can feel safe here. "La Paz is loco, aqui es MUY tranquilo" to quote what she said when we told her about our misunfortunates in La Paz.
Unfortunately, just a few hours in our stay in Copa I started to feel ill (seems like the altitudes finally got to me with strong power) which affected our remaining days here and led to some very, very chilled days. I guess it was a good place to chill, so I guess I was lucky in a way. We didn't have to go far to find food, but since Copa is a town surrounded by its tourism industry, it was pretty expensive to eat out but we managed to find some pretty good deals in the end (you just have to make sure not to eat on the Main Street and by the beach to keep the costs low)
Almost all restaurants here looks the same. They all offer sandwiches, pasta and pizza and all have set menu for lunch. Most of them 20-25 Bolivianos. We tried one of them one day, where we actually managed to get a vegan three course meal which to be homages, was pretty bad, but it did fill me up. Quinoa soup is always a winner in that way!
We also found an expensive (in Bolivian terms anyway) restaurant called Thai Palace with sushi (!) and tofu. Even though most of the things of the menu was pretty prices, we managed to find the meals with lowest price that still filled us up. I had a lentil Dahl with tofu and it was lush! Especially the tummy rice that came with it.
And you know how they say that soup is healing food for your soul? (Or do they, I don't know but it feels like something someone wise would've said). With plenty of coca tea on the site and a big bowl of soup I did feel much better that night we went to veg-friendly restaurant La Orilla (which is also pretty privet for Bolivia! But you do get a lot of food as well and the daily soup is vegan and cheap!)
Guy went all in here on our last night in Copa and ordered the veggie tacos which was a lot of food even for him. (And yep the hand sanitizer comes along to all of our meals of course!)
After three nights Copacabana, we jumped on the next bus and left this last village by Lake Titicaca before the Peruvian border. So with this bus we left Bolivia and had a four hour journey to Puno in Peru.
The bus journey went fine. I've never done a boarder crossing like this before so it was definately an experience. The border control was only like a 10 minute drive from the bus station in Copacabana and went fairly smoothly. First we had go check-out from the Bolivian side and all we needed to do so was our passports, the little visa note we got when we entered Bolivia and a form that the bus staff provided us with to fill in. After that we walked over the border where our bus was waiting to go into the border control on the Peruvian side and the same stuff applied here really.
After about an hour of queuing and waiting for everyone else on our bus be done, we could jump on the bus again and continue the journey.
We arrived to Puno where we only had two days and started to explore the town straight away. We went nuts on shopping and ended up buying loads of DVDs and a Rubik's cube.. Now I just need to find the patience to actually learn how to solve it.
There is not much going on in Puno, unless you want to go on the floating islands which we didn't really feel like as we heard they're just a tourist trap. Another popular thing to do is to go up the the condor view point, but after reading reviews about people getting robbed there we turned that down as well and decided to have another few chilled days, which I think was necessary aswell.
This is gonna sound really sad, but the best things about Puno for me was the food we were able to find. First of all, we numbed into a funny place called MachuPizza, which was actually a really nice restaurant with really nice food and that was actually really cheap compared to many, many of the other restaurants around downtown Puno.
And I mean. Their pasta pesto was made with avocado, for only 10 soles, so how can one NOT be happy here??
The biggest joy for me though, was to find a Loving Hut that was actually opened! Loving hut is a vegetarian restaurant chain and I been wanting to visit one for ages but always when I've been in a city that has one it's either just shut down competent, or it's simply been closed. But this one wasn't so yay!
The guy working there who I guess was the manager was super friendly and explained they're complacent menu as if he had never done it before. They have sooo many different options to choose between that you almost get dizzy. I settled for the daily set menu, but was still couldn't decide at all what to get for a long time as it was many different choices there aswell!
In the end I had the quinoa soup for starters, BBQ seitan for main (and it was so incredible har I kept eating even though my stomach couldn't take it anymore) and a vegan quinoa cake & cheesecake for dessert. Mamma Mia. I wish there was a Loving Hut in every town!
And so on our last morning in Puno it was time to take yet another bus, this time taking us to Cusco. We went with bus company Cruz del Sur, which was really good. The journey took about 6-7 hours and was really comfy, since it wasn't many people on the bus, the seats were really comfortable and they showed movies the whole way which made the time go really quick.
I'll be back with a Cusco-update soon my lovers.
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