We spent another couple of nights in Cusco post Machu Picchu before taking the Bolivia hop bus from Cusco to La Paz via Lake Titicaca. Bolivia Hop is a tourist bus (set-up by some Irish guys I believe) and intended to make crossing the Peruvian/Bolivian border as seamless as possible. The bus stops in Puno and Copacabana (both on Lake Titicaca) allowing travelers the option of continuing on or stopping for however long they wish in each place. We left Cusco at 10 pm and arrived in Puno the following morning just before 6 am. The bus takes a scheduled stop of 2 hours allowing those who don’t want to spend the night the opportunity to sample a short tour of the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. At a glance Puno’s main attraction is its accessibility to the islands, further time here is only warranted if you want to do the full day tour or avail of a home-stay on the islands. We optioned to do the short tour and continue on with the bus. The tour cost $10 each, you take a boat to a selected island, meet some of the families, see their living arrangements and learn about how they build and maintain the islands. The islands are very touristy and our guide was difficult to understand at times but the tour was an easy way to pass a couple of hours.
Floating islands of Lake Titicaca
From Puno we traveled to the border. The larger double-deck bus gets left behind and you cross the border on foot, checking out of Peru on the way. From the Bolivian border, Copacabana is only 15 minutes away perched on the shore of Lake Titicaca. We optioned to spend the night here before continuing to La Paz the following evening. The next morning we purchased boat tickets to Isla de Sol. The boat leaves at 10 am and returns at 3.30 pm with the crossing time taking approx 1.5-2 hours (Isla del Sol isn’t that far from shore the boats are just very slow!). The boat stops in both the small towns at the north and south of the island. The south of the island is where the main town is and the location for most of the restaurants and accommodation on the island but we disembarked on the north island and did the easy hike to the south which even included two island tolls! 🙂 The hike takes about three hours and has incredible views of the lake, other than the stillness of the water at times it was hard to believe you were not looking at an expanse of sea as water stretches in every direction.
Hiking from North to South on Isla del Sol
Paying one of the island tolls on Isla del Sol
View of Lake Titicaca from Isla del Sol
For us, one night in Copacabana was sufficient and we were happy to continue on our journey after a whirlwind stay. The last stretch of our Bolivia hop journey to La Paz involved crossing the lake at a narrow point of water. Bus passengers get off and cross by small passenger ferry while the bus and driver queue to be floated across. Only downside to this change of transport was the lengthy wait on the other side to be re-united with the bus.
White anchor in Copacabana
