May 20, 2026
Weird damn day. Absolutely nothing has gone according to expectations.
Woke up in Puno. My research on how to get to the Bolivian border had several locations where I could find a colectivo. I went to all of them. The internet was wrong. I did, during my 90 minutes of walking around, happen across the place where you can get colectivos to a city halfway between Puno and the border. And I was trying to ask the guy if I could get another colectivo from that point to the border. He looked at me like I was daft, and then told me where the colectivos to the border wait. Way the hell far away from where the internet had said. But, I got there, and only had to wait 15 minutes for it to fill up before we departed.
Interesting ride, and I don’t mean that sarcastically. 16 of us crammed into a minivan with two dogs, a chicken, and 200 pounds of onions, for a 2.5 hour drive. I know a lot of people from the first world would wtf all that, but I honestly thought it was a hoot. Only cost me $6.
It was also a very pretty ride. The area around lake Titicaca is apparently Perus breadbasket. Very pretty high plains with lots of wheat production. I think of all the parts of Peru I’ve seen, that’s the one I could see myself living in long term if I were to move here.
Colectivo dropped us off in the border town of Yunguyo.
From there lots of tuktuk drivers will offer to take you to “La fronterra”, which is what they call the border crossing. I opted to walk. Only takes 30 minutes, and I wasn’t in a rush.
The border crossing defied my expectations. All my research painted it as a difficult and confusing crossing with the Bolivian authorities being complete assholes. My experiences were vastly different. Formally leaving Peru was easy. Hand them my passport, give them another finger print, they stamped my passport, and it was off to no mans land.
The archway is the formal entrance to Bolivia. Mind you, there’s absolutely nobody stopping you from walking back and forth between the countries without going through immigration. There’s no signs directing you anywhere. No people either. Once I passed through the arch I found the Bolivian border guards asleep in the grass next to the road. Found the Bolivian immigration office and even though they have a long ass list of entry requirements requiring extensive documentation, all that happened was the lady typed my name into a computer and stamped my passport. I’m actually pretty paranoid some steps were missed that’ll impact my ability to leave without penalty.
The internet said 90 minutes to cross on a good day. The most time consuming part for me was huffing and puffing my way up the hill in no mans land. In all told it was maybe 5 minutes total.
Needless to say my friends honey made it to Bolivia. Two border crossings done, 3 more to go.
From the border it was a 20 minute colectivo ride to Copacabana.
This place is… it’s supposed to be a lake side resort town. And May is supposed to be the tourist high season in the Andes. But when I got here the place was a ghost town. Everything shuttered, nobody out on the streets, my hotel was closed with the doors chained.
I started wandering around, and eventually a restaurant door opened partially and a lady stuck her hand out and beckoned me inside. Had a weird old west “get off the streets before banditos get you” vibe. I went in to ask if she knew anything about my hotel. She said the owner would be back in an hour. I waited two, and then found another hotel that actually wanted my money enough to be open.
Seen a few more locals appear on the streets since then. But this place looks to me like a resort town that died and someone just forgot to bury it.
Curious how tomorrow is going to go. Need to take a boat to the north end of isla del sol. The internet said “just go down to the beach, there’ll be tons of guys wanting to sell you a ride”. I was on the beach for hours and I was the only person there.
