31ST MARCH - 5TH APRIL

We climbed aboard the local bus that was to take us to La Paz. We’d decided on the local bus as the picture of it didn’t look much different to the touristy bus and it went a lot earlier! Now the thing we had noticed about the various local buses we have taken in South America is that the times they say they leave is very open and general you can wait up to 30 minutes for the bus to fill up, before it sets off on its merry way. We weren’t surprised to find that most people turned up at the bus stop at the actual departure time rather than getting there earlier. Then of course everyone has to load their luggage which can be anything from a couple of bags to 4 or 5 sacks of something or other which inevitably has to be hauled onto the roof and strapped down. The bus wouldn’t have won an executive bus award but it was comfy enough.

Finally we set off and

were happily going along when we remembered what Phil had told us. He told us that you have to cross the water at some point and make sure you have your passports with you, which was no problem whatsoever. We didn’t really think much else about the crossing till we arrived at the point where the buses cross. Well I have to say we were both rather shocked to see how the buses are transported. Most passengers left the bus and headed off into a small boat for the crossing, it seemed optional whether you got off the bus or not, but after seeing the way these things were transported we definitely figured we’d be better off getting another boat!

After getting off the bus we were amazed to see it driven onto a flat boat, well I think boat is a bit to much of a grand word for it really but it was afloat so …! Basically it is just flat planks with a 1 foot surround and our bus (35 seater) drove