The observant among you will know that this is not our first time on Lake Titicaca. We were on the Peruvian side a couple of months ago, but the Bolivian side is a hundred times nicer. Copacabana is like a little beach resort (which it sort of is, as Bolivia had it's only coastal region "stolen" from it by Chile, who wanted it for the bird poo that exists there which can be used as fuel. But that's another story!). It has donkeys to ride walking up and down the lake shore, there are pedalos to hire and even something of a beach, with the odd brave / stupid gringo lying in their bikini. The setting is beautiful, especially at sunset, as long as you can block out the rubbish which has been dumped everywhere and the resulting smell.
Ben and I went for a 12 mile hike along the lake shore and that really was lovely. The countryside is completely unspoiled and we saw people working in the fields and pigs, sheep, cows and llamas. Ben even chased an unsuspecting lady, taking a pig to market on a rope, up the road, to try and surreptitiously take her photo! All this with the backdrop of an unfeasibly blue sky, Lake Titicaca, who's size is difficult to comprehend and snowy mountains all around.
My brother is also travelling in South America at the moment, but going in the opposite direction, so we met up with him and a couple of his mates, in Copacabana and all went out to the Isla del Sol together. The island has major cultural and spiritual significance as it is said to be the birthplace of Pachamama (Mother Earth), however we managed not to learn any more about it and saw only one Inka ruin, which was unanimously described as "rubbish"! We did, however, have a lovely time. We did some hiking (only once getting lost and ending up in a pig sty!) and relaxing, but mostly just made the most of the beauty and tranquillity of the setting (only occasionally interrupted by the unnecessarily distressed ee-ore sound of a donkey!). Our hostel looked down from a ridge over fields to a small cove where we could see little boats coming and going. We sat on deckchairs, drinking beer, watching the sunset and thinking ourselves pretty lucky. That was until it was just about turning dark and we noticed the even more impressive view the other way, with the white mountain peaks reaching up into the sky! Duh!!
Scott has been very disappointed to discover that Ben has made me "go soft". We have been staying in nice places, eating in restaurants and travelling on "luxury" buses (luxury? Really? Come on!), whilst he and his mates have been haggling over every penny, sleeping in windowless cells, eating non-specific meat from the street vendors and travelling on livestock-filled buses, pumping out loud repetitive music! However, we got our comeuppance due to a ridiculous lack of cashpoint in Copacabana (what?!) which meant that we were stuck with hardly any money and had to resort to eating horrible, inexplicably llama-flavoured, food. We also paid double what they did for our transport and instead of being picked up at our door by a "tourist bus", as promised, we were picked up by a lady in a taxi, driven to the bus terminal, walked past all the nice buses and put on the same type of crappy bus as them, and not even sitting together!!
Ben:
There are more photos here.
No comments:
Post a Comment