Lake Titicaca

We left La Paz first thing the following morning to head to Copacabana on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. From there we took a ferry to the lovely Isla Del Sol. As we were under pressure for time we headed straight there rather than a night in Copacabana first. Bad move. We arrived at the little port on Isla Del Sol to find it located at the bottom of a pretty steep hill. Of course, people who stayed in Copacabana knew this and had stored their rucksacks in the hostels there. We on the other hand had all our our baggage. Almost an hour later, on the verge of collapsing, we made it to the top of the hill after climbing the hundreds of steps on the vertical Inca Stairway and fell into the first hostel we saw. At that stage, we realised there is actually nothing to do on Isla Del Sol, except hike to the other side of the island that is. The island was gorgeous but it was a little like our favourite Father Ted episode in the caravan, what will we do now Ted, will we walk over and back to that rock there? As you can imagine, the words hike or hill were not popular, not good considering the Inca Trail was less than a week away. It also didnt go down well when I joked the hike was good training for the Trail. Anyway, we just chilled out for the evening and decided to leave the following morning. We spent the following day chilling out in Copacabana which was also lovely but not a whole lot to do again.
The next morning we left for Puno on the Peruvian side of the Lake where we intended to visit the (in)famous floating reed islands. We had heard mixed reports on these, a lot of people saying they were exploitative and like human zoos, but we thought there´s only one way to find out. Unfortunately, we never made it to the islands as our plans were thrown in the air totally on arrival in Puno to the news that the road to Cusco had been blocked for the previous 4 days by disgruntled farmers. Considering we had two days to get to Cusco this was a bit of a disaster. Straight to the train station we went, trains also not running. Into LAN airlines office, all flights booked out. Panic stations. Eventually we had to take a chance on the bus. We were told that Wednesdays bus left at 8am and eventually got through the road block and to Cusco in 16hrs (usually a 6hr journey!). We arrived in the bus station on the Friday morning to hear the bad news that Thursday´s 8am bus was still at the road block 24hrs later. Eventually the bus company decided to take an alternative route over the mountains. We were warned it would be a rough ride and there was no guarantee this road wouldnt be blocked either, in which case we´d have had to simply turn back. Cue the most anxious, rough and uncomfortable bus journey ever. Every time the bus stopped every head on the bus shot up expecting bad news. We took dirt tracks and mountain roads similar to those we cycled the week before, stopping loads of times to remove rocks and boulders from the road so at all times we were fearing having to turn back. Finally though, we made it to Cusco, 13 anxious and uncomfortable hours later. Wrecked but happy to have made it in time for the following days deadline to pay off and sort our Inca Trail. And more good news, the Bolivians are getting their referendum, looks like the marches served their purpose after all!