Wow, thanks everybody for your advice. I really like this here HUBB. So helpful!

So, to whittle it down:

1. Crossing into Desaguadero will have no appreciable advantage over crossing at Copacabana, because both roads lead to the heavily-roadblocked road to Puno, where stick- and stone-wielding mobs lie in wait. I don't suppose it helps that I'm a Canuck and the proposed mine they're protesting is, in fact, Canadian. Anyway, this isn't an option. I can just rule this one out.

2. The guaranteed option is to just turn around, go halfway back to Oruro, and then head to Chile via Curahuara. I really don't like this option because it involves backtracking, and also going to Chile, which I hear might set me back something like $150 for the temporary import fee for my bike? I heard something about that, anyway.

3. I may be able to get my bike onto a boat to Puno at Copacabana. Emphasis on *may*. This would involve loading the bike onto a smaller boat, which would then deliver the bike to a big boat, and would probably require some sort of winch to get on board. I'm riding a Vespa PX200, which weighs about 140kg with my topbox installed. Anyway, would the relatively small size of the bike might improve my chances with the boat option? And to what extent would money talk here? But more to the point, how hairy would it be getting *out* of Puno north towards Juliaca? Don't the stone-throwing mobs have to sleep sometime? Maybe I could slip out of town at the crack of dawn or something.

4. Option 3, as Toby and Tenebra and, last night over s, a Frenchman chef / biker here in La Paz explained, is to attempt the north side of Titicaca. My Frenchman pal here says that the road's pretty terrible, but that if my Vespa managed to navigate the ripio from Tupiza to Uyuni to Potosi, I should be able to manage this. Toby / Tenebra-- would that road compare? And just how deep are the sandy sections? Again, I'm on an old two-stroke Vespa here. It's proven surprisingly tough, this little bike, but the wheels can't handle much more than 4-5 inches of sand. Also, if I do attempt this ,the folks in Pto. Acosta will stamp out my carnet, correct? (For some reason they wouldn't issue me a temporary import down at Villazon, and insisted on using my expired carnet. I hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass.)

5. I'm a bit confused here about border formalities. Whichever option I go for, should I be trying to get my exit stamp here in La Paz? Is that the most guaranteed option?

6. And just a question about these mobs. My French friend here said he was surrounded by them when he crossed on his bike at Copacabana a few weeks ago, and that much raised palms and even-voiced pleading that he was just a tourist was enough to get them to let him be. I'm not sure if I'd be as convincing. Nor does that make any sense -- if the whole point of what these disgruntled back-to-the-earth types are doing is to make a stink, then it makes even more sense to hassle tourists, no?

Questions, questions. So complicated!

Thanks in advance for anything else you folks might have to add to my points/questions here.

Cheers,
JVM