It´s getting harder and harder to breathe....

Greetings from La Paz, the highest capital in the world. Yesterday Erica and I left the land of Incan Ruins and Inca Cola for what we thought would be a fairly smooth crossing into Bolivia. Wrong. We arrived at immigration only to discover that we had outstayed out tourist visa, and apparently our welcome, by one day and would be subject to a fine of about $10 each. Okay, fair enough, but we have less than 50 cents between us, so can we pay by credit card? No. Well is there somewhere we can take out money near here? No. Summary of the helpful Peruvians at customs (who would easily get jobs at Cuzco Tourist Info) was that we would have to return to Puno (where we had come from-some 2 hours away by bus). Some begging, a few crocodile tears and a feigned panic attack later, the ticket guy off our bus agreed to lend us the money. We walked over the border to the Bolivian immigration office and when asked what had taken us so long I explained and they laughed in our faces and said we´d been screwed over. And I´m sure it would have been sooooo different had we been coming the other way..... So we arrive in Copacabana on the Bolivian side and head straight for the bank only to be told that not only are there no ATMs in the town but in the whole of Bolivia. Oh and we can only withdraw in dollars by cash advance which will be charged at the rate of the bank teller´s favourite number multiplied by the number of visible clouds in the sky. By now we are pretty fed up and starting to realise what the "Bs" of the Bolivian currency stands for.(The numerous ATMs in La Paz that give money in Bolivianos must surely be a figment of our imagination..)

Anyway, on a brighter note we decided to splash out and stay in the fantastic Cupula hotel, highly recommended (thanks Sarah!) perched on the hillside with great views of Lake Titicaca. The luxuries of this hotel included not only a bath mat and a shower curtain but even complimentary hot water bottles complete with hot water. Oh and probably some of the best food we have had so far, the chocolate fondue nicely fuelled our new-found chocolate cravings!
The bus journey to La Paz this morning wound its way along the shores of Lake Titicaca-fortunately the scenery was beautiful enough to take my mind off the fact that our bags were on top of the bus (a big no-no according to most) and some guy´s smelly armpit in my face for most of the journey.

And then it was dinner time.When I was in Japan, whenever I saw a Carrefour supermarket I would run in hoping to find the extensive selections of (good!)cheese, wine, olives etc that you would find there in France or Spain. I was invariably disappointed. Well today I experienced the reverse of that (grass is always greener?never..) as Erica and I spent a good few hours scouring La Paz to find good Japanese food. Several policeman (who are incapable of distinguishing between Japanese and Chinese-think I´m starting to see how Fujimori got nicknamed "el Chino") later, we found a place called "New Tokyo" with a huge menu covering everything from sashimi to nabe to onigiri. The food was decent although not quite up to Japanese standards. They even played enka music (although I did debate asking them to put on some decent latin music!) However thumbs up for the Bolivian beer Paceña which does in fact taste decidedly Japanese! For those of you who are wondering, Ari decided to stay in Cusco to do a language course and will be rejoining us sometime soon-hopefully more about that from him...