Don't You Know You've Kept Him Waiting?

Boating Lake Titicaca. See, it's still NOT the sea.

A nice welcome to Bolivia from the bus conductor who gave us all twenty minutes to get through immigration before he'd threaten to drive off.

The awkward Bolivian customs official subsequently took almost an hour to process 40-odd of us, during which time the bus conductor had kept us standing outside in the cold.

With a couple of fellow travellers still in the customs office, the fat pig actually did start to drive off, before one of the lads' girlfriends implored him to stop, whence an argument ensued and fatty threatened to put the poor bloke off for taking too long!

Bienvenidos a Bolivia, I don´t think. The general greeting from several of the locals is one of sullen indifference, though our hostel owners make up for it by being extra lovely and the restaurant touts are very smiley. We'll see...

Copacabana: another romantic, easy-going hippy retreat replete with shops, caffs, bars, restaurants and book exchanges. Just right for hanging about in for a while.

At El Condor & The Eagle, a Bolivian-Irish venture, the boss Dan gives us some good travel tips, plus the best beans on toast I have had since January.

A surly lady in tremor, at bar Km Zero

We take the (miserable-crewed) boat on a day-trip to the Isla Del Sol for a nice five-hour workout across the spine of the island at 4,066 metres above sea level. My personal trainer will be proud of me.

Claire, Ivana and Kim, going down...

The "Sacred Table", which is frankly disappointing.
Don't think King Arthur has owt to worry about.

The altitude has taken it´s toll on us in several ways. The breathlessness even after an energetic shower, some headaches, coughs and colds, swollen glands; my insides seem to have dried up (if you know what I mean) and we have both suffered the reverse problem.

Also, we could power a wind farm between us... nice, but not uncommon, as we found from a friendly Taiwanese pharmacist we'd chatted to at Machu Picchu. Something to do with gut flora?

Happy days, eh! Self-enforced downtime for a couple of quiet days, but we're now in noisy, mentally crowded La Paz and higher ground.