Time to leave Cusco and Peru behind and head towards the wonder that is Lake Titicaca, which is described by one website as “definitely an unforgettable experience for any visitor.” I think we’ll judge that ourselves!
Learning from previous mistakes involving completely booked buses we head down early in the morning to Cusco bus station with intention to book ourselves an overnight bus across the Bolivian border to the lovely resort town of Copacabana (not the famous beach in Rio but the original that they stole the name from). Of the 16 companies advertising this route we pick an old favourite, Ormeño, and decide to pay the extra to get the royal class (re: first class) ticket. Why spend ten hours on a bus with no blankets, no food service and 15 screaming kids when you can get a luxury cabin with entertainment and all-inclusive service – hold on.. we’ve fallen for this before!
Nonetheless we happily purchase our tickets and make our way back out into the busy market streets. On a hunch we check the tickets just to be sure we got the date right (made that mistake before)and we’re surprised to find the tickets aren’t issued by Ormeño at all – weird because the desk we bought them from was definitely the Ormeño booth! Marching back inside we politely inform the (now that we pay attention) non-uniformed attendant that the tickets are obviously incorrect. She responds that it’s ok because this is the trading name for Ormeño in Bolivia (of course!), they have only just started operating in Bolivia and so they haven’t sorted the legalities of their trading name etc. A little confusing but what can you do. We’ve paid our $50 each and while we expect a few hassles, all-in-all it should be worth it.
Back at the hostel we check out and as an afterthought we ask the hostess to help us in our bus dilemma. She makes a call to the bus company, receives the same speech we got and with nothing else to go on we decide to let it be and just wait to see what happens. We spend out last few hours in Cusco wandering about, shopping for souvenirs and trying to find a replacement battery charger for my camera (damn Arequipa!). As night falls we make our back to the bus station in a taxi this time, partly due to the heavy bags and partly due to the sketchy neighbourhood surrounding the bus terminal.
Entering the terminal we make our way to the gate to await our luxury coach. Interestingly the Ormeño booth is closed up but our friendly sales-lady, now at the booth next door, waves us over and requests our tickets. We hand them over and in the blink of an eye she throws them under the counter and replaces them with another set. Following a very non-convincing argument that there has been a late change and we are being ‘upgraded’ to this other bus instead. Unsure what is an upgrade from first-class is but it must be damn good!!
45min after we should have departed a old, smoking coach pulls into the bay and people crowd on-board. Lucky that isn’t our bus we’re thinking because it looks like it wouldn’t make it out of the terminal let alone 10 hours across the altiplano, not too mention I can’t imagine all these locals smashing their way on board are all in first class and are obviously without reserved seats. Of course this is our bus, the replacement bus for the company that wasn’t actually Ormeño! We argue for a little while but realise this is fairly pointless and finally board the bus. With no assigned seat numbers we make our way to a spare set up the back, noting the few tourists already seated all appear as pissed off as we are and it would seem we aren’t the only fools to have fallen for this particular scheme (we work out later that compared to our $50 tourist tickets, the locals on board have paid about $7).
Anyhow you have to make the most of these situations so we smile and try to get some sleep before the roads gets really rough and toilet gets any usage. Surprisingly the night passes with relatively few interruptions and time goes rather quickly until we get a gentle tap on our shoulders at an inconvenient time of morning and discover that the bus has stopped as the sun is rising over the plain. The tapping continues and as we emerge from our hazy sleep induced minds we realise that we are being told this is our stop and we need to exit pronto. Grabbing everything we’ve left strewn around us and shoving it into our bags (how quickly can you pack a sleeping bag into its sack while your body is still half in it..?) we make our way down the aisle and off the bus, to discover that we are pulled over on the side of the highway in the middle of the desert. No bus station, no shops, buildings or other signs of useful life. Just a single t-junction giving birth to a dusty road into the distance. With our packs on (already laid out on the road for us..) we get a quick word that another bus will be along soon to take us the rest of the way – rest of the way!?! What does that mean, this bus was going to Copacabana right? Nope this is the bus to La Paz – the bus to Copacabana will be here shortly. Sure – why not! What could we expect from what has happened so far on this leg.
Sure enough a mini-van pulls up at the junction soon after and we hop aboard waving our bus tickets, proof that we’ve obviously purchased a valid journey and expect to present no troubles. Bags tied to the roof we set off – why would they load bags on the roof of a minivan with only two passengers on board? For the simple reason that this is the early morning shuttle bus between miscellaneous road junction and wherever we are headed and soon enough we stop to pick up some two women on their way to market, with all their goods including a basket of fish that ends up between my legs. A few hundred metres down the road we pick up a few (6) school children along with their minder and they climb aboard. As we approach a village we stop again to pick up some more children – maybe this is the school bus – and eight more climb in along with three labourers and their tools. By now its starting to get a little cosy, both Jess and I have children on our lap, fish at our feet and some shovels sticking into our necks. Luckily we only have one more pickup and he makes the smart choice to sit in with the driver. NOTE: We have now 22 passengers on board plus the driver – in a 9 seat van!!
An hour later we approach civilisation and everyone hops out at the apparent stop. The driver realises we are still aboard and tells us to get out and pay him our fare. Firstly, where is the border we ask, because we know Copacabana is in Bolivia and we obviously haven’t crossed over yet. Secondly, we have already paid as evidenced by our printed tickets we have been waving about. The border is 2km down that road he says and no, we haven’t paid him his fare. He’s not affiliated with the bus company and so doesn’t particularly care what our deal with them was. Fair enough I suppose but I’m starting to get a little pissed off by this stage, so I do the only thing I can do in a non-English speaking country – I sit there and refuse to get out! I guess he doesn’t run to any strict timetable, so showing no signs of concern he starts to read his paper and happily ignores my protest.
Eventually Jess offers to pay the fare and a little extra if he can get us to the border, sure why not, and finally we make it there. We get our stamps, walk across the border and sit down to wait for another bus, hopefully one that might actually get us into Copacabana. Another mini-van pulls up and after waiting 90min for it to fill with passengers (this is to be a common scenario for the economically minded Bolivians..) we set off on the final leg of this interesting and frustrating journey.
We arrive in Copacabana to find its.. err.. well a little underwhelming and not quite the resort town we had envisioned. Aside from the booths offering trips and tours to every corner of the region (as vast and varied as that is.. inside joke) there is little to entertain but it does have a certain charm – well no it doesn’t but I have to sound positive.. No worries, tomorrow we’re off to see the Lake and Isla Del Sol – birthplace of the Inca civilisation, or so they believed.
