We’d heard horrible stories of the crossing from Peru to Bolivia at Copacabana and the UK Government travel advice website only reinforced those stories. People left right and center trying to scam you, asking for fees and trying to get passports off you and other really great things.
We’d heard it was possible to book a trip from Puno on the Peru side that included the border crossing and transport right the way to La Paz in Bolivia. We went to a few travel agents and got pretty vague answers and ridiculously cheap prices neither of which filled us with confidence we’d actually get to La Paz.
Then we heard about a “luxury” hydro foil trip that took you to Isla Sol (the birthplace of the Incas), which we really wanted to go to anyway and gave you lunch and dinner and on the way. And basically walked you through the border crossing, holding your hand all the way. We booked this at great expense, but had no regrets at all.
Of course the reality of the border crossing was nothing like the scare stories and website trouble making made out and I think anyone taking just a normal bus trip over the border could easily make it over in one piece! Either the authorities have done a really really good job of cleaning the place up or all the scammers had taken the day off. The closest we got to any trouble was a kid asking to change an Ozzy dollar he’d been given to Peruvian. It’s not that obvious where you should go on either side of the border to get your exit stamp in Peru and entrance stamp in Bolivia, both offices are just mixed in with various shops though and we were glad our guide took care of everything. If you speak Spanish I’d imagine there’d be no problem. If not, then as long as there’s a group of you on the bus and one person knows where to go I’d imagine there’d be no problem too. All the offices are defiantly on the left side of the road going from Peru to Bolivia. You need to go to two offices in Peru; the police and the passport offices and just the immigration office in Bolivia.
Peru – Bolivia border. Bolivian entrance stamp office just to the left through this arch.
Anyway, back to our luxury trip. A short bus ride from the border got us to Copacbana. It wasn’t quite a hydro foil waiting for us but a very nice catamaran at least!
After some sightseeing in Copacabana, the cathedral and market etc we boarded our catamaran bound for the Isla we Sol and then onwards to the northern Bolivian coast where another bus was waiting for us to take us all the way to La Paz.
Isla del Sol was great fun. It did kind of lull us into a false sense of security though and some of the Bolivia we’d encounter later was a far cry from the organised and very pleasant Isla del Sol!
There’s a really good little museum, 
some good stuff about the reed boats, we got blessed by a shaman,
rowed a reed boat (well it was a reed catamaran and it had a motor, but apart from that it was completely authentic… honest!)
all in the space of a few hours.
First sight of La Paz…
[more]
