Day 9: Crossing the border

6:30am alarm and the breakfast. Guy from night before came and picked us up, and took us ot his private terminal. Nice, easy ride to the Bolivian border lthough I did't manage to slepp. At border, Berry realized she had lost her immigration card, so she got a new one as I chaned Soles to Bolivianos. Immigration was fine, crossed border, immigrtion on the other side also fine. Back to the bus. There was an unknown problem with our tickets, although we didn't seem to suffer any consequence for it. We got there and got the boat tickets fo Isla del Sol. We ate, and I had a much neede pizza. I went to get internet, but Berry did not see me apparently. I was on for about 12 minutes before I had to run to the boat, where, luckily, I found here again. It was nice to be on the boat on the lake, as you must all know my osession with water. Unfortunately we were below deck and not on top with the early-commers.

At the Isla, a 15ish year old walked us up the mountain, which took about 30 grueling minutes. Got a good-enough hotel for 50 bolivianos total, or about $3 a person. I felt very dizzy and Berry felt a little sick. The kid had told us that hte mountain was 4000 meters high. In American measures, that's pretty damn high. We napped for about an hour, and then walked to the stop of the mountain, which was more over and less up. I must have taken 6,000 pictures. We stayed until the sunset, and more pictures, at which point I realized I literally could not feel my fingers.

We walked down to a nice restaurant, which had 4 empty tables. We sat, and a nice man helped us. He offered us tea, and mentioned té medicinál. We asked about htat, and got into a lengthy discussion about Berry´s symptoms. He went down the mountain, and consulted his wife and sister, and came back with the perfect leaf. I just had regular old máte de coca, or tea from coca leaves. It helps with the altitude, they say. We each had about 5 cups fo tea. I also got trout and spaghetti, and Berry got nothing. We spent a long time arguing, mostly about the South.

By the time we left, it was pitch black. We stumbled and wandered around, until we finally foudn or hotel. Our Spanish neighbors were very loud and smoking what had to be weed, which made it pretty hard to sleep. Still, I managed it. What a trooper.