November 5, 2005
Day 38
The bus to Copacabana left early, so I only was able to get three hours of sleep last night. Luckily, it was the most comfortable bus I had ridden in so far with nice seats and plenty of legroom, so I had no problem falling asleep almost as soon as we left.
When we got near the border, I filled out a customs declaration form and changed my money to Bolivianos, the Bolivian currency. There was a short line at the Peruvian customs office where I received my exit passport stamp. Next, I had to walk 100 meters or so through no man's land across the border and wait in line for the Bolivian customs. It was a very simple process as nothing of mine was searched and I didn't have to deal with needing a return ticket. Unfortunately, however, I only got thirty days to stay in the country, whereas Peru had given me 90.
Copacabana is a small tourist town near the border of Bolivia and Peru on the shore of Lake Titicaca. As soon as I got into town and found a hotel to stay at I took a long nap as I was still tired from last night's festivities.
After my nap, I walked around for a bit and discovered that the Internet costs seven times as much here as it did in Peru because they have to run a phone line into town from La Paz. This also means that it is a lot slower than I'm used to, so I think I'll avoid using it for a few days until I get to La Paz. I also stopped by a few camera shops hoping to get my small camera fixed, but the consensus was that nobody in town would know how to fix it, so that will have to wait until La Paz, too.
Late in the afternoon, I walked around a bit more and watched a nice sunset over the lake. Bolivia is an hour ahead of Peru, so the sun sets at around 7:00 here, which is a nice change of pace for me. I was far too tired to do anything at night, so I just went to bed early in preparation for another long day.
The photo album for this entry is here.
