Across the border.

We didn't really do much today, firstly we sorted out the payment to Mae's dad, which took a ridiculous amount of time considering we phoned them the day before!! We then set off, after grabbing a coffee of course, to discover if anything was happening with regards to the festival today. It turned out however that it wasn't really, there were still lots of victory parades going on and many people getting drunk but apart from that not much... We danced to a couple of songs which could have perhaps been cumbias and then decided it was time to get some lunch. We found a cafe which was offering a 3 course meal for just over $2 and ordered soup (only vegetable was available) and kingfish. Both dishes were very nice although both of us thought that the kingfish was a bit too small and bony. On top of this we were sat at the restaurant for nearly 2 ½ hours to get served these 2 courses!! There was supposed to be a third course of fruit but when we eventually asked for it we were informed that there was none left, of course he hadn't bothered to tell us this before we ordered and even still expected us to pay the full price for 2/3 of the meal. Obviously we were having none of this and left $3.50 before walking off! For the rest of the afternoon we mainly wandered around town and at one point walked down to a different part of the lake so we could see the town from a different angle. Doing this we discovered how ugly the town actually is without the colourful market stalls and unique people who live and work there. For dinner we bought some bread, cheese and a tomato which we sat down by the docks to eat. After dinner it was time to go catch the bus to Puno so we collected our bags from the hostel and walked up to the square where we loaded our bags on the bus, found our seats and filled in the Peru immigration card before departure. The drive to the border was really short and the process was the most simple we've encountered so far, we changed some money (and managed not to get ripped off by the man who tried to gives half what our money was worth) and continued onwards. I can't say I was impressed by the driving as we seemed to spend over half the journey on the wrong side of the road but despite this we arrived safely in Puno around 8:30 Peruvian time (9:30 Bolivian). After faffing about for about 15mins trying to get our bags (no one had loaded them in any sensible order so they were mixed in with those of people continuing on to Cuzco) and not paying the departure tax (you obviously don't pay it on arrival) which the bus company collected from at least 40-50 people and I guess put directly in their pockets!!! We caught a Taxi outside and had a fairly uneventful ride to our hostel... this in fact turned out to be a rather good hotel which is renting it's beds individually in the off season. We ended up in a lovely private room with an amazingly comfy bed which we lost little time in taking advantage of and despite the fact that there wassnow outside (!!!) we snuggled down and were soon asleep.