Copacabana, Lake Titicaca, and PERU!

When I left you last, Fran and I were on our way to famous Lake Titicaca, which straddles the Bolivian/Peruvian border. As mentioned in a previous blog post of mine, Lake Titicaca is the remnant of ancient Lake Ballivián, which once covered the entire Altiplano. What's now left, is still an enormous body of water, covering an area of 8,372 sq km, South America's largest lake, which has had a huge impact on the Altiplano cultures that encountered it. The Tiwanaku culture flourished here, from approximately 1,200 BC to just a few hundred years before the Inca arrived in the area. According to Inca creation mythology, Titicaca is the spot where the Empire was created - the Sun God causing the first two Inca rulers to emerge from the lake, and they narrowed it down to a specific location on the north of the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun), which juts out into the Lake from the Bolivian side.
On a personal note, I'd long wanted to see the lake, after reading a book called Trail to Titicaca a few years back. Reading about a place before you get there always makes the experience a bit more personal.

So we left La Paz one chilly morning, saying goodbye to an awesome city.

La Paz, and Illimani sits above it

Taken as we left La Paz. This woman was waiting for the right time to set up her stall (packed away under the blue covers)

Chaotic streets of La Paz

One of Fran's pics whilst I was in bed sick. Great shot I think!

Another one of Fran's

The bus travels across the last of the Altiplano for about three hours. Along the way, you are offloaded onto a boat, and the bus itself crosses a narrow straight on a barge.

Buses cross on barges.. people take small passenger boats

From there, it's a short drive to Copacabana. Touristy, yes, but one hell of a cool town. For the first three nights we stayed at Hostal Las Olas, which has easily the nicest view of any hostel in South America... big call, I know. And yes, I also know we've only been to three countries! The comment still stands. Our private "cabin" had a small kitchenette, hamocks inside, two small gardens, also inside, and the pièce de résistance, gas showers! No more electric shower heads!

Our "hostel" room. That bed on the left is big enough to fit a tank on. We even had hammocks inside!

The view from our room. The funny shaped building in front is another cabin of the hostel

See what I mean?

Copa is also reknowned for it's fantastic sunsets, and we were greeted on all our nights there (bar one, more later) with such a view. We climbed a huge hill next to the hostal to watch the sun set into Titicaca.

Sunset over Lake Titicaca

Sunset over Lake Titicaca

As the sun sets over Copa. Hiking to the hills around the town is hard work!

A few hours later

The big Cathedral in Copacabana

By the way, Stu: I finally managed to track down a copy of the Solaris album.. watching the sunset and listening to that music? Well, you get the drift.

On our third day in Copa, we took a boat ride out to the Isla del Sol, and visited the ruins. The boat drops you in the north of the Island, and from there it's a 45 minute walk to the ruins, and then a three hour walk to the south of the Island where the boat waits to take you back. Remember, Titicaca is at just over 3,800m amsl, and the hike is easily two hundred meters above that. Hiking through this terrain was HARD. You take a few steps and your body screams for oxygen. But we made the walk in just over two hours so we were pretty chuffed. Cath and Jonesy are probably laughing at us right now, seeing how super-fit they are, but that's good work for us guys!!

The trail on the Isla del Sol

Cordillera Real, from Isla del Sol

Locals having lunch

Cordillera Real again

On the boat trip back, a huge storm came in off the lake and hit Copa. The boat had to drop us in a cove near Copa and we then had to walk back to town. The storm stayed with us the whole night, and the wind for a few more days. Wind coming off that enormous lake is both cold and very powerful.

A storm brews on the lake. It was very powerful when it hit, and rolled all the way to La Paz

The next day we were due to leave Copa for Puno; a journey that would take three hours by bus. We arrived at the Peruvian border and got some bad news. A series of rolling strikes that have plagued the country for several months was in it's latest swing. The road between the border and Puno was blockaded by locals. Farmers had set up baricades and were charging anyone coming through, asking for quite a bit of money. Some people even reported that if you tried to walk around the baricades, you would be pelted with rocks from the locals, and potentially worse. So we had to turn back to Copa and stay there another two nights, waiting for the strike to stop. Luckily, after moving to a new hostal (similar to the previous one, and situated right next door) we ran into Craig and Laila again! Great stuff. We had dinner with them that night. The price for a curry, black forrest cake, bottled water, and drop of Chivas' finest? 67 Bolivianos.. just on six pounds.

The penultimate day was a chill-out day, where I spent a bit of time putting the blogs together, and Fran went and shopped.

Finally, 6 days after we arrived in Copa, we made the border crossing! 6 and a half weeks in Bolivia in total. When we were still in Chile and Argentina, I'd honestly though we would struggle to fill four weeks in Bolivia and that we'd be in Peru around 8 July. Well balls to that. Bolivia has so so much to offer. It's good and bad sides are equally charming, and Fran and I will very much miss that fantastic country. Do yourself a favour... visit Bolivia!

P.S. I know I'm really quite far behind in responding to emails and such, and my apologies for that. I'll get to them all hopefully by the end of the week.