Titicaca and Beyond

So, We headed inland toward the town of Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.  This was a diversion from the Pan American Highway, but Jim and I felt that we would regret not visiting the high country of Peru and Bolivia.  We arrived at Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca at dusk.  Unfortunately, our GPS was on strike, and we were forced to figure out the city on our own...which was of course was an impossible task.  To make matters worse, Puno was in party mode, as most cities on this continent are at this time of year, and the central area of the city had closed off streets for stages and other festivities.  As we explored the center of the city, we found ourselves down a one was street that was blocked off for a stage concert.  As we stopped, I accidentally killed the engine, and as our luck would have it, the ignition problem returned and the the truck would not start.  We pushed the LRT to a 12 point reverse and solicited the help of four teenagers to push the LRT fast enough to start by compresion.  It worked, and we were on our way, down the wrong way, of a one way street.  By this time, we were again desperate. We overcame our pride and stopped a  3 wheel cab to lead us to a hotel we picked out from the Lonely Planet guidebook.  By this time, I was feeling sick with a fever, and unspeakable intestinal trouble.  We gratefully checked into the hotel and I faded into bed, heavily medicated, while Jim fended for himself for diner.  Puno is pretty much a dumpy town, so we left early in the morning for greener pastures...the goal, La Paz, Bolivia, via Copacabana.

The border crossing was easy, by our historical standards, and two hours of formalities later, we were on our way in Bolivia, along the shores of Titicaca.  The customs agent politely asked us to move the Little Red Truck past the chain, because he was closing the international border for lunch.

Copacabana was terrific...a quaint beautiful little villiage on the shores of the lake, filled with locals doing  their best to party in the middle of the day.  We are still a little confused about why every city is partying, but we suspect is still has something to do with Carnival.  Nevertheless, we are happy to see everyone else happy.  We see more angelos (95% Euros) here than anywhere else in South America...mostly the backpacker set.  After a nice lunch, we set off for La Paz.  This involved a four hour drive that included a ferry ride across a narrow Titicaca inlet, and a spectacular view of an enormous Bolivian snowcapped mountain range.  Again, we arrived in at our day's destination in the evening.  Attempting not to bore you with another tale of confusion and desperation, just let me say that two more hours of unbelievable congestion, road rage, fear and frustration later, we followed a highly paid taxi driver to our hotel in central La Paz.

We gratefully left La Paz early the next morning, With the goal of driving the Altiplano to the coast of Chile.  As we drove southwest, we worried about runing out of gas, as there are literally no gas stations along the way for our route.  We were amazed at the geography....we could have been in the Great Basin of the USA, but we were traveling most of the day above 13,000 feet in elevation.  Instead of seeing cattle grazing in the Bolivian version of sagebrush, we encountered herds of Llamas and sheep.

As we rose in elevation, we were surprised to reach the Chilean border.  Before us, was an enormous snowcappped mountain, which forced us to stop numerous times for photo ops.  The boarder crossing was again relatively easy, with us making friends with the Chilean customs agent, who turned out to be most interested in where we came from. "I am Mormon, he said, and you are from Utah...I hope to make it to General Conference in SLC this year", he said.  I quickly took the oportunity to endear oursevles to him by finding common ground, and we shared eceastical experiences with him.  I'm sure this greased the skids, and we were happily on our way.  The border of Chile is a whopping 15,380 ft above sea level.  Several lakes are present near the border, and we see pink flamingoes feeding in the shallows...pink flamingoes at 15,000ft?  Yes, weve seen it before in Patagonia...go figure.

From what seemed like the top of the world to us on a hellaciously bad road, we eventually started to decend to the coast.  Worring about running out of gas, we coasted where we could, but the decent was too steep, and we had to use the gears to control our speed.  Over the course of the next four hours, the scenery went from "Great Basin", with 20,000 foot volcanoes, to the Sahara, as we decended to the coast, and the Aticama Desert, the driest place on earth.

 In Arica at dusk,  we settled into a modest hotel to begin our trek down the coast of Chile.