Lake Titicaca (hehe)

After my traumatic haircut in Uyuni, I was ready to get to our next destination, Lake Titicaca.  To get there my bro and I had to traverse another overnight bus ride,  during which I was 90% sure Satan had finally claimed my soul and started burning me in a mobile easy bake oven.  It was literally so hot that at one point I thought my pants caught fire... it was lucky I wasn't wearing them.  If I had, it might have brought new meaning to the word hot dog, if you know what I'm saying...yeah that's right, i made a wiener joke.  This blog is officially  NC-17.  Damn you Oprah.

After getting back to La Paz at 7 AM, we learned that our next bus to Puno left at 8, giving us just enough time to retrieve the bags we dumped at a local hostel prior to our venture to Uyuni.  Luckily no one stole my Space Jam dvd or my 98 Degrees t-shirt.  After gathering our things we went back to the bus station for what turned out to be the most tolerable ride of the trip.  About 2.5 hours into the trip everyone had to get off the bus so it could be ferried across the lake as bridges don't exist there.

South American transportation is epic!

After the crossing, we got back on the bus and drove to Puno.  Once there we made our way to the edge of the lake and hopped a ferry to the Isla Del Sol, which I believe is Spanish for a whale's vagina. Anchorman reference - Drink!

The highest navigable lake in the world

As Josh and I walked through the streets of this ancient town, I sensed something.  With a twitch of my nose and a perk of my ears, I knew what had happened.  Millennia of genetic evolution had given my ears the ability to hear certain things at a somewhat superhuman level, and as I looked to my left, my convictions held true.  I saw that Lake Titicaca had lived up to it's name, at least the first part...bwahahaha.

That's right, the sound I heard was that of the female breast being exposed to open air.  Now before you get too excited, let me explain how unglamorous this boob was.  This boob, was the that of an older local woman, who whipped it out to feed a child that in my mind was too large to be breast fed.  It was creepy and ruined the majesticity of my childlike enthusiasm for boobies.  And yes I wrote boob or boobies like 10 times just because I like saying it.  But regardless, Lake Titicaca proved true to it's glorious name, and I will always respect it for that.

After hanging out on the island for the night we decided to make our way to Peru, which meant we had to deal with a border crossing!  I made it through with no issues thanks to my imposing strength and perfect body (4% body fat).  My brother, who at this point i'm positive has worms, did not have the same luck.  Immigrations didn't stamp his passport at the airport so he had to deal with the border police.  As I'm waiting for him I notice that our bus is no longer in sight and we left all of our possessions on board, and I began to think... Thank GOD I am wearing my 98 Degrees t-shirt right now, I mean can you imagine losing something as irreplaceable as that?  After 20 mins of waiting, my bro finally appears and we can cross into Peru, where we have to go through yet another border check.  Luckily we spot our bus near the border patrol building and my bowels simmer down.

As we get back on the bus, I settle in and get comfy, for we were told when purchasing these tickets that this bus would take us all the way to Cuzco, our final destination.  Of course, I forgot this was South America and the universe was going to shit on my life again.  So about 2 hours in we stop at a bus station and get told we need to exit the bus and get on a smaller, local bus for the remainder of the trip.

As we enter this new bus, my brother takes the window seat in the front left row, leaving me with the aisle seat.  If his goal was to get me to want to kill myself, he most definitely succeeded...  For the next two hours I had to listen to locals scream sales pitches three inches from where I was sitting.  My A-hole brother knew that this would happen and intentionally sat there to make me experience this as it is another Backpacker's right of passage.  They also had no respect for the personal bubble, as they were constantly leaning into my legs, though I can't blame them as touching me means touching greatness.

After the sales pitches were over, our bus driver proceeded to get shit-faced with about 6 other dudes for the remainder of the trip.  Fortunately I had Big Willie Style on my iPod and was able to take my mind off such horrors. 5 hours and at least 3 rum bottles later we made it to Cuzco.  Of course we arrived at 1 AM,  three hours after our promised time of 10 pm.  We navigated our way to the cheapest hostel we could find ($8/night) and boy was it classy, but that's a story for another blog.