CAUTIOUS CARGO ↑ This way up ↑: From Peru to Bolivia via Lake Titicaca

After a couple of days in massive Cusco I planned to cross into Bolivia over Lake Titicaca, breaking the journey in Copacabana. Shortly after leaving Cusco a fight broke out on the bus between two local men, the older one was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and manhandled off the bus. The border crossing was not without incident either as whilst I was queuing for the last of three passport checks, my coach left without me. I'd randomly decided to keep my backpack etc with me whilst queuing which no one else had. I felt a bit silly but this as it turned out meant I avoided a lot of hassle and/or heartache. There was one bus left on the border at the time and like legends they let me on for a small fee for the last 8km.

In Copacabana I walked around and found a room in a hotel run by a traditional Andean matriarch for about £1.80. Heavy thunder and lightning throughout that cold night made the windows vibrate with the base of the thunder, and in the morning I had a cold shower next to an electrical socket. A cold/electrical theme going on! As it was so good I had the local speciality for lunch and dinner, trout from the lake at little lakeside restaurant stalls, whole juicy and crispy fish butterflied so well there wasn't a single stray bone. I must learn how to do that. Friendly Bolivian families running the lakeside stalls, kids included, who would run off to get their mum now and again.

I loved Copacabana and thought it was a romantic place. Some beautiful churches and artisan stalls, and at the time it was also, I think, the festival of abundance, where tiny versions of coveted things like cars or houses are celebrated in the hope that the real thing will come in the near future. Traditional dances and Bolivian folkloricas, like Semilla, '5 Pesos' I really liked.

The following day the journey from Copacabana involved crossing the last chunk of Lake Titicaca; the double decker bus and all its luggage on one wooden float and its passengers on a separate boat, reunited on the other side and onto La Paz.

Other random observations include the discovery of an orange banana, a man wheeling a giant coach tyre through a coach terminal, two very smart pilots on a very bad motorbike, many pedestrian crossing green men animating a sprint rather than a walk, free headphones and WiFi on Cruz del Sur buses along with announcements to close the curtains for personal safety and, sadly, three dead dogs.