Trying to leave Bolivia...

Trying to leave Bolivia...

After fighting La Paz-s traffic and finding our way through the endless, sprawling slum of El Alto, we finally ended up on a nice paved road. The pavement lasted for about 20 miles, then turned into a mish-mash of pavement interspersed with stretches of potholed dirt. The view of the lake and the mountains was spectacular, though. The Bolivian side of Titicaca is remote, rugged, and totally traditional. The potholed dirt eventually gave way to a "cart track", i.e. a narrow strip of tampled dirt accentuated with randomly placed, large and mishapen boulders, all hiding below inches of road-dust. After 40+ miles of this, we arrived in Puerto Acosta, and were immediatly swallowed by all the locals in their annual fiesta celebrating Crist-s cross. How wierd! As soon as we parked (in the main plaza, where else?) we were surrounded by dozens of men dressed in traditional costumes, children pulling at bee, and one man dressed as a goblin wearing a dead skunk on his back trying to hump my leg! I was totally shocked and weirded out, especially after 120 miles of harrowing roads and one frightened passenger. We managed to free ourselves from them with many smiles and a cursory hug or two, and found a "great" hote (meaning parking for Bee). The hotel had no showers or proper toilets, and was run by a woman fresh from a cave. This was Vals first toilet expierence with a "hole in the ground and two places for youer feet". She was especially scarred of the toilet after recently ending her battle with E coli.

After all this, it was time for a beer, but the town was completely shut down for the fiesta. After searching for a normal restaurant, we finally did as the locals were doing and bought beer on the street. As soon as we bought a beer and opened it, everyone started insisting that we drink the beer as fast as possible. The locals seemed to get upset when one of us took a second to breathe or look to the utter mayhen surrounding us. I felt like I had ended up at the frat party I had so carefully avoided in college! Oh well, I thought. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do..." We ended up drinking a number of beers with the locals (there were thousands of people in the square, not one gringo besides us two, and everyone was wearing their village-s traditional dress) and made some great friends. Eventually, it occured to me that only the older, successful, business-owners and teachers were drinking with us. We had successfully penetrated the upper crust of Puerto Acosta. The owner of the local "Punto Intel" even invited us into his home to show us his trophies and idols he had won in previous festivals. What a trip.

Valerie and I eventually were able to give our new friends the slip, and we snuck back to our hovel. We both were struck by the signifigance of our situation - how often do you show up in a village in the middle of nowhere,and be treated by everyone like royalty, and be free to take pictures at will? We were tired, but happy. We ended the night at a dirty restaurant serving llama and rice, and prayed that our stomachs would hold the food in. They did.

(valerie's turn) Well, the dinner held well, was healthy and I am still feeling great. So we began our adventure into Peru....

It started with customs. We had no problems getting the proper exit paperwork work for the bike. They told us we then had to go into town and get our passport exit stamps from the police. Once we located the police they told us they hade no stamps for us but we could get them at the border. Hour and a half late,r after a mild Bee wreck on the worst road we'd ever encountered, we reached the border and were told the only way to cross was with an exit stamp from La Paz. AAAARGH! Back across the worst cart track ever (somehow my spidey sense kicked in as to when i should walk) and adam had the worst wreck Bee has ever experienced. Poor bee. We used electrical tapé to re-attach the turn signal light, but the gas tank has some lovely scrapes and dings. We Bee-lined for Copacabana, managing to tear the skid plate off the bike in the process, but we reached our goal, happily knowing the rest of the way to Cusco is paved :)

TTFN A&V