We crossed the border into Bolivia with no hassles (I love being Canadian) and stopped for a bit in Copacabana, the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca--aha, I think I found that extra hour-plus, plus. We boarded the next bus and promptly fell asleep. We were awakened about an hour later to be herded in our groggy state like cattle onto a little boat. Completely unaware of what was going on, we followed along, mooing all the way, and watched in shock as our bus was then hurried onto a little raft to follow us across the river. Bolivia was proving itself to be a very bizarre place indeed.

Back on the bus for another hour and it still looked like we were in the middle of nowhere. I don't understand; I thought we were heading to the capital of the country!!!? Then as we were gaping at a giant, creepy, metal, modern-art statue of Che Guevara (apparently Bolivia was his place of death) poof, out of nowhere there it was; a super packed and busy city sitting in the bottom of a valley, completely surrounded by mountains. La Paz!! Awesome!!

We checked into a nicer hotel, having made the decision to take it easy for a few days. We'd been running ourselves ragged and our bodies were feeling it- badly. The first wonderful discovery that we made was that everything in Bolivia was stupid cheap!! We headed over to a five star restaurant for a proper meal that cost under $30 for wine, coffee, dessert, great food- soooo happy! Finally, there were vegetables! Our experience with South America to this point was that Peruvians like a little starch with their starch, and if they could fry or batter that starch, all the better.

We spent three days just wandering the city, eating well, hanging out with new friends and generally relaxing. It would seem that when we roam aimlessly, we have a knack for stumbling across the main attractions anyways. It was in this fashion that we found the main squares, presidential palace and even the infamous San Pedro prison. We had really wanted to try and get into the prison grounds to look around, having heard it was one of the more unusual places of incarceration in the world, but tours were no longer open to foreigners. Apparently if you are jailed in Bolivia, you get moved into this walled community. People still have to work for a living to pay for their "cells" and if they can't afford it, they live in hallways or on the streets. It was described as a micro-city within the city.

We traipsed around to the front entrance, contemplating trying to talk our way in, but when we took one look at all the men pressed up against the barred front door, we thought better of it. I'd already been attracting enough attention- something about a woman with big boobs and a culture that has no qualms with blatant staring- and heading into a men's prison, suddenly didn't seem like the smartest idea.

It takes a special sort of person to be able to travel with me. I've been lucky enough in the past to have two such women as my travel companions. While my favorite thing is over-planning for a trip, I also enjoy the whole idea of scrapping those plans, changing everything and heading somewhere completely unexpected. I'm happy to say that Dair has taken to this lifestyle like a "duck" to water, and he handles my whims with just the right amount of consternation yet total excitement and screw-it-let's-do-it attitude.

And so when I realized that the Uyuni Salt Flats were only an overnight bus away I was too fascinated to ignore it. I had always wanted to go there, it just never occurred to me that it was feasible on this trip. But stupid is as stupid does, so we made the decision to head another ten hours in the wrong direction. That's when it hit us; we were going to have a b**** of a time getting back up to Ecuador. We started counting the hours on the bus and our almost healed bellies started churning again. We had agreed that on this trip we would take one internal flight to save some time; however, we'd been planning on that being of the domestic variety, and international flights on this continent were proving to be pricey We had almost resigned ourselves to having to bus back to Puno and then take a flight to Lima, followed by three overnight buses to get to the border of Ecuador when Super Travel Agent Shayne kicked back into action; a couple of hours on a the internet staring at airline flight paths and a map of South America, and we made the only logical decision- to continue heading the wrong direction! We booked our flight from Iquique in Northern Chile to Guayaquil, Ecuador (with a stop in Santiago of course) and then ran for our bus.

Hooray for new itineraries!!!