bolivia and a birthday!!

we left arequipa by bus and arrived at the town of puno, which is on lake titicaca on the peruvian side.  the next morning we took a bus across the border to bolivia.  this was quite frankly a bit stressful.  bolivia treats americans a bit differently than everyone else.  first of all the visa alone is $160 per person.  for just about every other nationality it is free or of minimal cost.  we had heard that this was because of the US participation in the eradication of coca plantations in bolivia and i was ready to shake a fist at nancy reagan and her war on drugs, but i looked it up. turns out when bolivia's president morales allowed americans to obtain visas in 2007 he set the visa cost is in retaliation to the cost that bolivians are required to pay for US visas (about $100).  so fair is fair i guess.
anyway in addition to the cash you also have to present proof of your hotel reservation, proof of a return ticket (we didn't have that...we just shrugged and they shrugged back), passport photos for each of us, and proof of yellow fever vaccination.  we had all of these things (i quickly had to take a passport like photo at a little stand conveniently right outside the immigration office).  they only accept crisp $20 bills with no flaws which we had obtained from our bank before leaving.  unfortunately we thought the cost was $135 per person so had to scramble for extra cash....they rejected four of the $20 bills which were 'flawed' and thankfully allowed us to make up the difference with both peruvian bills and bolivian bills.  to complicate it all their computer system was not working great plus our spanish isn't great and ultimately the process (for us) took so long that the bus finally just handed us our backpacks and left us (that part turned out not to be a big deal as we were able to hop a collectivo to copacabana which was only 10min away).  we finally made it thru.....not the most fun for sure!!!!  i don't anticipate any other border crossing along the way to be remotely that stressful.

in the end we found ourselves in the town of copacabana (not the famous one from the song but still) which we was just delightful.  lake titicaca sits at 12,602 ft (as we told the kids this is higher than mt.hood) so the elevation took a bit to adjust to (yay for altitude medicine!!)

we stayed for several days at this sweet little hostel on the hill....

....complete with a llama (brown) and an alpaca (white)

 ....and we were able to celebrate riley's birthday!!  riley turned 12 on the 12th at 12,000 ft.  pretty cool.  we bought some produce at the local market and fixed his favorite for breakfast....breakfast burritos!

then we ventured down to the beach.  it was very busy as it was the weekend and many bolivians were relaxing and playing on the beach (the next day on monday the beach was deserted)

i believe these two statues represent the sun and the moon. there are two islands nearby called isla del sol and isla de la luna and legends center on the creation of the sun and the moon here.

the kids rode one of these big blow up tube things. they were only supposed to get 15 min but the boat that towed them out broke down and so they ended up with a much longer ride.

we had lunch at one of the little tents lining the beach that cook up fresh lake titicaca trout. and it is fresh. we ordered and then the lady went down to the water and came back with the fish. it was so delicious!

and to top of the birthday boy's day he was able to find a pick-up game of soccer to play.  todd played too. they were certainly feeling all of those 12,000 ft, but what a happy boy.

we had dinner at the restaurant at our hostel.  they actually had chocolate fondue on the menu! so we sang and riley blew out a candle.

when the staff heard us sing to riley they made another dessert for him....a banana sundae!

sadly poor riley's birthday ended on a very low note. he was vomiting violently before midnight.  we can't figure out what he ate as we have all essentially been sharing all our plates of food.  both kids had an ice cream on the beach but all lucy had was a little loose stool and riley was very much actively vomiting for hours. not sure but not fun.

we were going to take a day trip out to the isla del sol but instead had a mellow day. riley basically slept and i watched over him.  lucy and todd adventured down into town and knocked on the door of the local highschool and asked it they could volunteer.  they were happily invited into a high school english class where they helped the students practice english.  the ice breaker was a round of 'head shoulders knees and toes'....pretty fun experience for lucy.

it was a lovely few days at copacabana and thankfully by the end of the evening riley was feeling much better and we will continue onto la paz tomorrow! hasta luego!!