Lake Titicaca and french toast in Cusco

Album - Copacabana, Bolivia

With Youngmi still feeling rough we had a 4 hour bus ride to Copocabana on Lake Titicaca. Huge lake looking like the sea, sunshine, lots of cafes all looked good. Taxi to Hotel Utma took two minutes and just drove around the corner from the bus station. Dave climbed a hill overlooking town for sunset and found a much better hotel. Next morning moved to La Cupula, a hotel built by Martin over the last 17 years. Martin is a german sculptor and the hotel was beautiful. Lots of gardens, hammocks, different shaped buildings and a fire place in our room.

All restaurants in town had exactly the same menu and food was either no good or we were still suffering altitude sickness. Copocabana was near the Isla del Sol where the inca emporers came from. Lots of Inca sites round about. Dave climbed a granite hill with inca steps. He also set off walking to Yumapapa. After an hour a minibus took him the last 15 kms. Beautiful ride along the waters edge and through villages and hills. Practising spanish with the locals on the bus. Climbed another hill past a few llamas and looked at Isla del Sol and big snowy mts.Started walking back but no traffic. Luckily one car picked Dave up. This was the ice cream car and stopped at all people along the way to sell them an ice cream.

Used the hot tub at La Cupula lying in the not water watching the sun set. Two argentinian ladies told us Hugo Chavez had died. Hugo was the only news on the TV for next few days.

Album - Puno, Peru

La Cupula was great and Copocabana was not.Bus to Peru.Very fast border crossing.Peru border guard says welcome to Peru and that Dave has good teeth.The Bolivian dentist must have been a wizard.Stopped a night in Puno and visited the floating islands. Big islands made of reeds that about 200 people live on. Puno was pretty rough apart from one nice street. Two good meals one of Alpaca.Building up to guinea pig.From the ferry got a motorbike rickshaw back to hotel. Flying through the streets in the dark.

Bus from Puno to Cusco for 10 hours stopping at some inca and colonial sites.Lots of terraces for farming high on the mountain sides. Fell out with the bus company as we had bought a ticket including admission to 5 sites and they wanted us to pay extra for admissions.

French toast

Album - First few days in Cusco, Peru

Met Mark and Bec a scottish couple on the bus. In Cusco Dave and Mark went hotel hunting and found a good place where Mark got the rooms for half price.

Next lunchtime Mark was desperate for a big scottish breakfast with french toast.He negotiated a good deal replacing toast with french toast. When it arrived it was a big breakfast but "this is toast not french toast"The manager struggled to understand as Mark kept repeating this in an increasingly strong scottish accent. So funny if you were not desperate for french toast. Tomorrow we are off for four days along the inca teail to Machu Pichu