I wandered down to the waterfront of this dineyfied town. That's Copacabana if I did not mention it in the last post. Expensive place for Bolivia, but then i have not found that Bolivia is massively cheaper than other countries down here. It can be. Definitely. Its also at a way lower level of quality though, so you get what you pay for. Especially with buses. They are all dirty, disease ridden shitpits in this country. Even Peru could clean its buses. Anyway I bought a ticket from the dockside for half the money the others had paid at agencies in town. Ah you have to love the dirty shiester middlemen. I went and got some lunch in town. It was very expensive, but pretty good. Best food I had in Bolivia probably, except for the place near Potosi's bus station of all places. I grabbed the boat and headed over to Isla Del Sol. They had asked me if I wanted to stay or come back. What time did the boat arrive? 3pm. And what time did it come back? 4pm. Hmm. Yeah I wanted to come back. Don't want to spent more than an hour somewhere surely. What a waste of time that would be. Fuckwit.
On the boat over I got chatting to a Texan dude, a couple of German girls and three English guys. Surprisingly everyone from my country on this trip had been decent except the idiot in Iquitos, but at least he makes for good stories. Hmm we were informed that we would have to pay 5 Bolivianos to see the excellent Incan sites and 20 instead of 10 to come back. Ah welcome to the con. You are on a boat and so have no choice but to pay. Then you must pay double to come back because you are trapped on an island and have no choice. Ladrones. Oh well it was a good first intorduction to the long con. Also I got told to shut up for translating the tour guide to those who spoke no Spanish. Ah of course. It is important to note that the tour guide was repeating the exact same thing for the third time, but heaven forbid I stop someone from memorising his drivel. We arrived on the island. They met us at the dock for the Inca ruin charge (rip off the gringo charge). They could not change a 50 (I know they never have change so I always pay with big notes as it gets me stuff for free). They said pay at the office. I went 'yep, sure' and walked straight past it. I will pay if its fair, but if they fuck me, I will fuck them harder. A cool little kid met us and escorted (frog marched) us to the hostels up above. He expalined how everything was Inca and they only had one fountain for water. I said what about the north and he said oh yeah they had fountains too. They really will sell you on any shit here. Also the 'Inca' ruins looked younger than my house in the UK. I do sometimes wonder how much of these 'lesser, crappier' sites they dig up in obscure towns are Inca and how much are Ikea. The place was really nice. Shame we would never sleep there. He changed the price from 20 to 25 as he had obviously undersold the place for commission and probably made more money for his walk than the hotel did. We decided to get a quasi dinner and then hike to the north end of the island. Part way round we hit a checkpoint. Ah class. More ruins (that don't really exist) in the north and we would have to pay 10 to enter the other side of the island and 5 for path maintainence. This country was going to need to come up with some system to maintain my patience. I said 'no chance, 10 maximum' and they took it. I ended up paying 10 when it should have been 20. Good business. I have become a master haggler and fearsome negotiator and I will get my arse handed to me when I am back in London and on the London Underground insisting I will only pay half and they will have to take it or leave it. We went hiking off across the island. You get some great views, but if you take away the snow capped mountains on the right it could easily be England. Then it began to rain and it was England. Andy (the Texan) had stomach problems and went to the random town on the right with one of the German girls. They managed to scramble down what we thought was a path in the light, even if they ended up going through a forest. We were not so lucky. We hiked onwards to the end and saw fuck all for our 10 Bolivianos and then we saw lightning ahead of us. Shit. We really had to scramble back for the town. Andy was going to try to hire a boat to take us back. We got lost on the trail and eventually found the path down. Well I say path, but it wasn't really a path. We descended round a rock and down a gully. Luckily we found some plastic bottles left behind by irresponsible tourists. Its always a sure fire sign that you are on a trail frequented by touristy tourists and they would not desert safe ground. Either that or locals use the trail, because Bolivians will always throw their shit into the wild territories. We eventually staggered towards some light and shouted to a shadow. The ghost man he shall be called. I never saw him. We just spoke. His voice drifted through the fog like those ancient mariner's voices out at sea and we were cut adrift in the fog, so it was apt. He told us to go downhill where we met some demon children who escorted us into town. We were told our friends had not made it (which was wrong as they had been there and told the owners to say we were in the restaurant). Luckily we were hungry so that's where we had headed anyway after paying kids biscuits to take us there. We found the others and Andy said he had a captain. They had taken refuge in the restaurant after a 3 year old girl had told Andy this Bolivian guy wanted to beat him up and rape the Sonja. Charming. Good educations these islanders get. The boat captain changed his mind and then wanted our trade in the morning. He can go fuck himself, the lazy bastard. We ate and then set off for home, but a downpour ofrain changed our mind and we stayed in another place on this side of the island for 15 Bolivianos. The beds were ultimate shit. One of the worst I have ever stayed in. Andy had to abandon his, put a mattress on the floor and borrow a sleeping bag from some French who were drunkenly partying upstairs. Ah no more drink for me now. Que triste.
We got up early in the morning and set off for the hike back across the island to rescue our backpacks. We got to the edge of town and these almighty noises came from beyond the pathway. It sounded like the smoke monster from Lost. What kind of island was this. Demon children, smoke monsters, ghostly sailors, rape minded 2 year olds, thunderstorms at both ends of the island and mysteriously invisible Inca ruins. It was mystical. Almost otherworldly. Thank God the little bastard from the checkpoint yesterday was on hand to drag us back to shitty reality. It was pissing it down on the way back. Like walking on the cliffs of Devon. We were walking towards the gate and I could see some hobbitlike creature in a plastic cover come bounding (well jogging slowly) along a pathway below us. What was it. A mystical creature. No it was a Bolivian man. I joked cynically that he was running to charge us at the checkpoint lol. Only the little shit was. He got there and asked for money. I said no we paid yesterday and would not pay again. He said you pay everytime you go through the checkpoint. Yeah right. I just advanced on him, got angry and said we had paid him yesterday and we were not going to pay anything again to this fucking mercenary. He can jog slowly back to whatever pit he crawled out of. Then the heavens really let us have it. This was torrential rain on Amazonian levels, only cold. We got destroyed by the rain and I was beginning to wonder when I got back just what was this lump around my appendix. It is still there, but much smaller than before. I hope this bit of the blog is not a precursor of something really awful later on. Oh well. My dad reckons its a strain. Stripped off the wet clothes and got in the beds we never slept in. They were so much better and the reason we did not walk back the night before was to avoid the rain. Well that worked. We took a tinier shittier boat back to the mainland. It looked like it would sink anytime. Yeah charge us 10 to come over in a good boat and 20 to go back in a shit one. Also we had stone cold crazy pilot. Just like Sir Jabalot at Angel Falls. He had zero facial expression and just like Jabalot took us in the clouds while everyone stayed low, he ploughed ride across the middle of the lake while everyone else hugged the coast. Why do I always get the crazies. Anyway we made it back and were sold into chattel slavery by an agency. I am not joking. They sell you bus tickets, but don't actually have a bus. Then they sell you in big groups to bus companies. I half expected to find myself renamed the Bolivian and entered into gladiatorial combat in the pits of La Paz when we got to the other end. Hmm ok then the bus stopped and we all got out (Sorry it was a minivan as they ran out of busses. Bumper day for the slave traders). They drove our van onto a log and then punted it across the river. Take that Cambridge. Punt a few tourists. Bah. You should be punting a whole bus. Then we were loaded into a children's compartment to cross the river. Now it was like a slave galley. No room to breath. We hit the other side and carried on with a new Danish doctor for company. I think he told me you make something obscene like $12,000 a month if you work as a doctor in Norway or was it double that. What the hell do you do with that money? I had travelled with the two German girls and as it was battering down with rain we got a taxi (after the third one eventually gave us a fair price) and stayed in. Sonja and I grabbed dinner and chatted philosophy for ages and then turfed in.
We got up early and had a look around the town. The view of La Paz as you arrive there is actually quite special, but the city looks often like the toilet parts of Central American big cities close to the centre. We saw the catehdral and the main square was nice (as you expect from these colonial Spanish cities). The city is a bit dirty and a lot of it was being refurbished. Was unusual for me, but it was a big city I did not like that much. Was ok. Nothing more. Yet everyone raves about La Paz. Possibly for the cocaine, as after Colombia it is the second most prolific. Though they shut down the cocaine bar recently due to an expose from the Guardian. Is there anything that paper can't ruin. they interfered in another foreign election and cost the electorate recently. I still remember those idiots writing to American in Ohio in 2004 to vote for Kerry. Yes because if you write to midwesterners from a socialist paper advising them who to vote for, they are going to vote for your recommendation. Arrogant sons of bitches. I would love to see the numbers, but I reckon at least 90% of those written to voted Bush in a close election year. Perhaps the Guardian is to blame for Bush's second term. Just want to hang that one out there. We went to the funky kid's park that doubles as a mirador. Then we grabbed an awesomely healthy breakfast in a cafe (I was wrong earlier. This was the best meal I had. For my health anyway). Then I broke my toe kicking a curbstone looking for a new phone. We headed to a gallery which had quite a lot of cool art. I met Sofia and we went and bought a telephone. I said I wanted the cheapest they had and they offered me one for $150. No the cheapest. So eventually I got one for $35 but its not activated for the chip. Well they assured me it is unchipped so hopefully it is in Chile as will try to pick something up there. We got some coffee afterwards and then met the girls back at the hotel to get some dinner and go clubbing. The club was a nice location, but the music was properly shit. Kind of like Candelario in Bogota. I was getting tired of crap locations. Need to go to the End when I am back in Bogota and looking forward to the clubbing scene in Buenos Aires where I will be able to dance properly. I was told Tiesto was playing on the wednesday so I changed all my plans to see him and would set off for Potosi or Sucre in the morning. See those two, come back and then head out to Santa Cruz for a bit. I need some sleep at this point and probably now as well to be fair.
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