Crossing The Border

What an ordeal! Yesturday was definatley the craziest most frustrating of this whole trip, maybe of my whole life. I was supposed to be at the bus station at 7 for a 730 bus to the border, then to Copacabana for a 2 hour lunch break, then on to La Paz to arrive at 4 in the afternoon. SOunds nice right_ So as Im checking out the lady asks where Im headed and I say La Paz and she tells me that its impossible and theres absolutely NO WAY ill be able to get there because there was a strike in one of the towns we had to go through and busses wouldnt be allowed to pass. But I already have a ticket so I decide to go to the station anyways.
First of all, they dont have my reservation, even though Ive already páid and they say the bus is full. A girl told me about another company that was going and they were going to walk through the town, about 20 minutes, and have a different bus pick us up on the other side, and so I get there and they have no seats except one right beside the driver, which isnt even a real seat. I take it and they take me out the back way, I dont have to pay departure tax or even for a ticket.
Then after 20 minutes of driving, there IS a seat on the bus, so they move me and charge me 10$, this is the second time ive paid this mind you, but because were already on the bus, they cant give me a ticket, this becomes important later. After 40 minutes of driving we get to that town and...everybody off. We pick up our packs and day packs, one guy even had a snowboard, and were told we have to walk 5 kilometers, which will be mmore than 20 minutes, and then after we walk a while they say, oh actually its 10 kilometers! There was supposed to be a worse strike the next day so we all decide to keep walking. Normally my bag is heavy, but because Im planning to send stuff home from LaPaz I went shopping in Puno and my bag is EXTRA heavy. Everyone starts spreading out and by the time we reach the other end, 2 hours later, theres only a handfull of us. And NO bus in sight! SO we wait, and wait, and wait some more. Finally, I made friends with 3 people from Isreal, they worried about the border closing before we get there, so we try to get a cab to take us to the border, but no one would they said that they didnt have clearance, plus they wanted 20$, when I say dollars I mean American. We decided to wait a bit longer and it was good we did because people who had gotten cabs to take them...protestors would throw huge rocks at the cab and they had knives to slash the tires...it was a bit scary. So finally someone from our bus company comes and tells us to keep walking cuz the bus is up the road...we get there and they wouldnt let us on the bus. They guy had to come and they argued fo a while before we got on. Then we were moving and the guy came down the isle asking everyone for tickets...which i didnt have. So I told him what happened and he didnt really have any other choice but to beleive me. After 10 minutes we all get off the bus and get stuffed into vans. There were two huge tourist busses of poeple walking when we started and now we were down to about 20...I never saw snowborder guy again. We got to the border, got everything stamped and then swithched to another cramped van, and these suckers were hot. OH did I mention I didnt eat breakfast because I thought wed be havinglunch by 11, so its one and Im starving. We finally get to Copacabana and me and this one other guy were the only ones headed for LaPaz.So theres no oone from our bus company in sight, neither of us have tickets, so we pay to get on a bus to La Paz, it leaves in an hour and a half. So we go for lunch and then get on the bus. Arrive in LaPaz around 8, 4 hours later than we were supposed to, we head to a hostel that was reccomended to us by one of the girls in the small vans. Get there and they are full so he calls another one for us, but thinks this guy and I are a couple, so he asks for the matrimonial sweet...wrong. ANyways, we walk to this hostel and sort everything out, hes, Lee from California, in his own room and Im sharing with anothe girl. At this poin I can totally smell myself cuz not only was it a long day, my last hostel didnt have water when I came home fom the isalnds, so a shower had been a long time coming. The water, of course was freezing, but I did it anyways.
Well, that was my adventure...one day Ill look back and laugh...I hope!