Thursday, March 10th - Copacabana, Bolivia

We were up early this morning to catch 6:45 bus to Copacabana and Lake Titicaca.  The bus picked us up at the hotel and then we spent a good hour driving very slowly through the streets of La Paz to get to the bus station, which was our final pickup.  Traffic was very heavy so the going was slow but also the people we were picking up were all late.  At one hotel we waited for twenty minutes because apparently the hotel clerk had told them the bus was always late so they might as well go have breakfast so they did.  And they decided to finish their breakfasts before coming down to the bus.  Since it was a large group the bus just had to sit and wait.  To say the very least, I was not impressed.  We were one of the earliest ones picked up and we didn't get breakfast.

Once we left the bus station there was another long drive of at least an hour just trying to get out of La Paz.  Traffic was bad but there was also a lot of construction and the detours slowed things down.  It was used and bumpy and not a very pleasant ride but we did get to see a lot of the city that we'd never seen before.  And as it was still early morning, there were a lot of people out and about waiting for buses or taxis or setting up their street-side or market businesses, or having a bite to eat from one of the already open businesses.  And the ladies were all in their traditional costumes of big full knee-length skirts of pink, green, yellow, blue, red or any combination of colours, plainer tops and then colourful warm shawls.  And almost all of them wore a hat as well.  Some were wide-brimmed sun hats but some were the small bowler-style hat sitting precariously on the top of their head.   These hats are specific to one area or tribe and I have no idea how they keep them on but they do, and the hats seem perfectly useless as far as sun screen is concerned because they just sit on the top of the head and have very small brims.   They are definitely just more decorative.

Eventually we were out of the city and travelling on a reasonably good highway through the hills and valleys above the city.   There were many fields of crops: potatoes, quinoa, etc.  In some fields there were a lot of workers, mainly female, all working together to harvest the crop.  I assume they later move to a different field and harvest that one as well.  The fields are not big and the work seems to be done communally, which is nice to see.  It is also nice to see how they use so much of the land by having smaller irregular shaped fields that can occupy all the space available in the valleys and up the sides of the hills on terraces.

Before very long we saw the lake in the distance and then gradually closer.  The views of the shoreline were quite spectacular. Around every curve you wanted to take another picture of the lake, the shoreline, the hills and valleys leading up to it and the islands in it.  Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world and it seems huge, although it is much smaller than most of the Great Lakes.  You seem to drive along the lake for hours to get to Copacabana and that is on the Bolivian side.  From the Peru side I remember driving along it for a long time before hitting our destination there.  Then when you get to your destination on shore it takes hours on the water to get to where you are going.  It looks huge when you are on it and there are lots of islands, natural and man-made floating reed islands, that make it seem even bigger.  The hills along the shore line and the higher Andes mountains behind also help to make it seem larger.  The actual size is 8,400 sq km.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  As we followed the shoreline along we had the lake on our left.  Then as we drove further along the lake was on our right.  It seemed to keep jumping around, which was a bit confusing, until our guide told us that the one was the big lake and the other the little lake.  Technically it is the same lake but at the this point there is a peninsula that almost separates a small section of the lake, the little lake, off from the rest of the lake, the big lake.  When you look at it on the map it becomes much clearer.  The closest a part of the lake is only 40 km from La Paz but then it is a long windy road along the lake and out the peninsula to Copacabana.

Before getting there though, you come to a point where you have to take ferries across a narrow straight to keep following the road.  All of the passengers get off the bus and take a small boat across the straight, a trip that takes about ten minutes at most.  It's a very calm stretch of water so a very calm ride.  The boats are pretty basic and I didn't exactly see a lot of life jackets readily available although there definitely were some way up at the front of the boat where you would never get at them if you needed them in a hurry.  However, there are a lot of boats ferrying back and forth all the time and the shore is not far away so I think you're pretty safe if anything happens.

Meanwhile, the bus goes across the straight on a different ferry.  Wooden flatbed ferries carry one large truck without the cab or one bus or a couple of smaller vans.  As a vehicle drives on to the wooden planks that cover these ferries you'd think the flatbed was going to tip right over.  And they do a lot of rocking back and forth while they are crossing the water so they look very precarious.  We were quite happy to be off the bus and on our little boat for the crossing, especially as we watched the guys on shore bail a lot of water out of the ferries once they were back on shore.  Once the bus was off loaded and back on the road we all piled in and went on our way.

The crossing was from San Pablo de Tiquina to San Pedro de Tiquina (St. Paul to St. Peter) and at that point we were very close to the Peruvian border.  There is actually even an immigration check point just to make sure you have your passport to continue further.  However, it is just a check point and not an actual control stop so if you didn't have your passport they would just warn you that the border was close and you couldn't go any further in certain directions.  Since we were going to Copacabana and the Isla de Luna we were going to be in Bolivia the whole time so we were okay.  At the crossing we were still high at 3,810 metres above sea level.

Eventually, after almost five hours on the bus, we arrived in Copacabana.  The bus stopped about one long block up from the water.  We got our bags and walked down about half of the block to our hotel.  They had had a storm the night before and with the cooler temperatures they got some hail and snow.  Some of it could still be seen on the side of the street.  However, it was warm when we arrived about noon so the snow wasn't going to last long.  We checked in and went down the street to a restaurant right on the waterfront for lunch.  I had trout again and it was delicious

The waterfront has quite a large area before the street and buildings start.  There are a lot of boats in the harbour, both larger ferry boats for passengers and smaller fishing boats.  There are also lots of small crafts like swan paddle boats, sailboats and kayaks for the locals and tourists.  On a Thursday at noon there were not a lot of people out on the water but it was a pretty nice day.  And there are lots of restaurants and bars right along the waterfront with lots of seats overlooking the look so you would have no trouble finding a great location for meals or drinks or sunset.

After lunch we went for a walk around the town to see the major sights.  The pedestrian street was interesting and one of the busier places in town.  Copacabana is obviously a tourist town as most of the businesses were restaurants, bars and souvenir shops - lots of colourful materials and clothes and alpaca sweaters, socks, gloves, hats, etc.   We were up and down this street many times in the next few days.

The main square was pretty quiet but very nice.  The 15th century Cathedral was on the square and it had a very large courtyard for gatherings as the natives preferred outdoor services while the Spanish were used to indoor services.  The stone fence around it had an Arabic style to it with high shaped arches and brick geometric designs.  We wondered about that for a while but eventually figured out that the early Arab influence in Spain probably came with the Spanish to Bolivia.  We went into the church but did not stay long as there was a small funeral going on at the front.  However, I have to say that from the back, while it seemed Ike a plain white church the front altar piece looked amazing.  It was gold and filled the whole front of the church so it looked very rich and beautiful. 

Outside the church boundary and in front of the square there were a number of stalls selling champaign, colourful decorations,  flowers and all kinds of other things that didn't seem to go together in our opinion.  However, our guide explained that people would come to the church to have their vehicles blessed by the priests so the family would have safe travels.  They then sprayed champaign on the car, decorated it with colourful streamers and flower petals and eventually drove away happy.  As we looked at the road around the area we could see the remains of the decorations and later on we did see some decorated cars driving around town, especially on Saturday.  The colourful decorations often depicted the country they were from as the streamers were done in the colours of the countries' flags: blue and white for one of the other countries, red and yellow and green for Bolivia, etc.

We then continued walking and went through the main market area.  There were outdoor stalls and indoor stalls that seemed to sell everything including fruit, vegetables, meat, cheese, fish, nuts, etc.  The popcorn here is huge with one piece sometimes being two inches long.  But then their corn kernels area also three to four times the size of ours so I guess it's all relative.  Even the lima beans seemed huge, and the avocados and the squash.  Only the peaches seemed to be smaller than we would get.  They seemed to have everything we would see in a market: potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, corn, beans, peppers, garlic, lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, squash, onions, cucumbers, various greens, egg plant, bananas, apples, pears, watermelon, pumpkin, apricots, grapes, papaya, oranges, and a few others that I didn't recognize but had heard of.  They also had all kinds of nuts that looked delicious.  Everything in the market looked delicious except for the meat which isn't refrigerated so really didn't look all that appealing just laying around on the tables.

From there we decided to hike up the hill for a view of the city.  The way is really a religious route and represents the Stations of the Cross (Calvario).  People make pilgrimages to this site with some of them walking for three long days from La Paz and then climbing up the hill once they get here.  I knew I was going to have enough trouble just getting up the hill, which was at 3,973 metres above sea level.  I can't even imagine walking all the way from La Pax.  As we got to the start of the walk we ran into Lily and Albert from our tour.  They were just on their way down.  On the way up there were some pretty funky chickens that looked like they had stuck their feet in an electrical socket as they had feathers sticking out in every direction including around their heads.  We thought the first one was just having a bad hair day but then we saw more of them and knew it had to be just a different type of chicken than we were used to.  

At the top there are two hills: St Barbara on the right and St. Christopher to the left.  St. Christopher continues the Stations of the Cross while St. Barbara is lower and more of just a lookout.  We continued up to St. Christopher.  The walk was easy for the rest of them but a bit tough for me as there were uneven and high stairs to climb.  I eventually made it though and the view was certainly worth it.  From the top you could see the whole bay, the city of Copacabana and surrounding valley and hills, across the one part of the lake to Peru and out into the bigger area of the lake to the Isla Del Sol and other islands.  With the sunlight filtering through the clouds the lake in some directions looked quite great and flat but in other directions it appeared a brilliant blue against the green and brown hillsides.  The view was quite spectacular but we did eventually have to go down.  Luckily I had some help on the way down because I don't do well with deep steps going down either.  Luisa and Gillian were very helpful offering a hand or shoulder to lean on.

Once down at the bottom Luisa went her own way and the four of us (Charles was still with us at this point) went to a spot on the water to have happy hour and watch the sun go down, although we really didn't think there would be much of a sunset since it was so cloudy.   Luckily we were mistaken and the sunset was actually quite beautiful and lasted for some time. We left there and wandered over to the pedestrian street to find a place for dinner and ended up in a sports bar watching the Bolivian team playing soccer/football against Argentina.  I had trout again and it was delicious.  After dinner we went back to the hotel to bed and that was the end of another great day.