From Cuzco, we caught a bus back to Puno. The journey was much more comfortable in this direction - the bus had far more legroom than we've become accustomed to, and the trip took the appointed length of time. We arrived in Puno at 2:30, checked back in to the Hostal Europa, and then rushed to the Bolivian consulate, since we'd realised that Monday and Tuesday were public holidays to mark the day of the dead and we didn't want to have to hang around until then. When we got there, the consulate was closed. Fortunately, Veronika had the presence of mind to knock, and the extremely pleasant consul opened the door. He explained that the authorisation had arrived and that all we had to do was go to the bank, pay $35, and Veronika would get a visa. We thanked him profusely for seeing us "after hours" and headed to the bank. It too was closed, but we weren't too dismayed, as there was a guy queuing who told us it opened again at 4. We opted to find out about buses to Copacabana in Bolivia from the tourist information office. The wonderfully helpful staff there, who had previously been of much assistance, offered to take us to buy tickets and advised us not to buy a through ticket to La Paz, as it was cheaper to take a local bus from Copacabana. We got to the ticket office and booked two seats for Monday: when I expressed surprise that the service was operating on a public holiday, the woman laughed and said that tourism had no holidays. In the confusion, when asked to write down our names, I wrote Vergus for Veronika; we all had a good laugh about a husband who didn't even know his wife's name. We paid 15 soles each for the tickets.

When we got back to the bank, a large queue had formed, and it turned out that the bank didn't open again until 4:30. Fearing that the consul might leave before we were done, I rushed to the consulate leaving Veronika waiting in the queue, where the consul explained that he would wait for us. I rushed back to Veronika, studiously ignoring and attempting to sidestep the obnoxious shoeshine boys, shortly before the bank re-opened. Fortunately, the queue moved fairly quickly, and we were able to pay the fee and get back to the consulate, where Senor ... issued Veronika's visa and gave us a brochure about Bolivia, taking the time to explain some of the sights we should see. Given that we had 30 days and wanted to use it all to avoid overspending in Argentina, we decided that we would try to do as much as possible in Bolivia. The Senor had been so kind that we told him we'd send him a postcard, which we fully intend to do. He replied that if we included our address, he'd write back to us. Our initial impressions of Bolivia(ns) could not have been better.

Much relieved, we went for something to eat, only to discover that our fav