Lake Titicaca bus ferry

During our bus journey from Copacabana to La Paz this morning (after first buying our tickets), we had to cross over Lake Titicaca at one point, where the lake is very narrow, and where you'd otherwise have to drive around for a very long way. They have a pretty cool ferry system at this spot, where they ferry cars &mash; and buses! — across on wooden rafts. They also ferry people across, on little motor-boats. Fun little interruption to an otherwise eventless journey.

Errr… is that a bus on the lake?

When we reached the ferry spot, we all had to get off the bus, and catch a motor-boat across the water, while the bus got put on its own ferry-raft and taken across. Then, on the other side, we had to wait a bit, and hope that the raft hadn't cracked and taken the bus down with it (along with all our bags!). But it was all good.

They also have a naval base here on the lake, where the proud "Bolivian navy" is stationed. A bit of a joke, because Bolivia doesn't actually have any coastline on the sea — at least, not since Chile stole it off them about a century ago — and yet they insist on still having a navy on all the lakes and rivers within their territory. The navy building has something written on the side of it, to the effect of: "Lake Titicaca is the sea". Uh-huh, sure guys: whatever you say!