These Boots are made for Walkin'

And that's just what they'll do. One of these days these boots are going to walk all over you. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.

Uh...anyway...enough of that. Post title mainly from the fact that I have done a lot of walking in the last day and some. Yesterday my sister and I went to the Isla del Sol from Copabana. We ended up having the slowest boat on earth, with one broke-ass motor and the other just sputtering away...struggling to push the boat and some 20 or so people forward. Our boat left before everybody else, yet we arrived last at the island. Just our luck hahaha.

Isla del Sol is absolutely beautiful. The lake looks like glass almost, and in the midst of water pollution in Latin America, it's refreshing to see a body of water that isn't brown or have garbage in it. We got off at the North end and made our way to the South end...not because we wanted to, but because we got lost. In the end it was worth it because the landscape through the 2 and some hour trek is breathtaking. I think beaches are beautiful, but it is just so amazing to be on the top of this island, above everything else and see Bolivia on one side, and Peru on the other (but if you ask me which side is which I couldn't tell you hahaha). The trek however was tiring and by the end, I was starving and had to pee so bad...it was time for a day for relaxation. But it wasn't over yet, we had to board the boat again, which ended up leaving later than all the others (yes, even though it was the slowest). We were supposed to arrive back in Copacabana at 5:20, and we would be able to catch our bus at 6:00. So our slow boat made its return journey, and stopped at the Templo del Sol for 15 minutes which was not part of the itinerary. It put me on edge, I was sure that we would miss our bus because nobody ever takes 15 minutes at something.

In the end, we ended up getting back to the island at a quarter to six where we ran to the bus company, grabbed our bags from some random hostal that I managed to convince to store our bags even though we weren't staying there or have ever stayed there. But in the end, it didn't matter. Our bus didn't leave until 6:45 anyway, which I should have anticipated being that it was a Bolivian bus.

Off we went to Peru (my beloved pais). First though...we took the bus to the border. On the Bolivian side everybody got out and had to go through Bolivian immigration. My sister and I were stragglers because we were exchanging money...so we went back to our bus, but nobody was there. Then our bus driver tells us our bus is on the other side. The other side? The other side of what? The other side of the road? The other side of the bus? Oh no...the other side of the border. So off we went, in the middle of the night walking through the Bolivian/Peruvian border, like a pair of illegal migrants. It was strange...I have never walked through a border like that...I felt like I should have been skulking or something, rathering than prancing through. Okay, well I didn't prance but I didn't skulk either.

After that we took another bus to Puno, and switched buses there to Arequipa. Somewhere along the road, we stopped to pick up other passengers and just our luck, we get this family sitting behind us. Yes...an entire family sitting behind us, you know, where there are only 2 seats. The mother had so many bags that she kept making my sister raise her seat so she could fit her bags, meanwhile she stretched out her chair completely. Coulnd't have put the bags under the bus or overtop you know? Meanwhile behind me, there were like...3 people in the same seat and the kid kept kicking my seat and pulling the overhead part, with my hair included. It was super frustrating because the previous night I had gotten about 1 hour of sleep, and then we hiked all day and were exhausted. All we wanted was a good nights rest, which is already hard enough on a bus itself, without annoying people sitting behind us.

Anyway, eventually we arrived in Arequipa at like...2 am in the morning. We phoned around and managed to find a hostal that had room. So...here I am now! In the hostal...taking advantage of the free internet here (bahaha!). Anyway...that about sums up my adventures as of how.

Home next week on Friday...so I expect to see some of you faces soon! If not in Toronto, in class in Waterloo. For those of you, my friends in Calgary, soon enough my loves! Soon enough!