October 5-8: Copacabana & Isla de Sol

We've been in western Bolivia for about 5 days now. The ride over from Cuzco was our first experience with cama bus service, with fully reclining seats. Much better than expected especially due to the thick wool blankets provided as it gets very cold at night in the altiplano (the elevated plateau that covers parts of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina).

So far Bolivia has been a land of extremes. Extreme elevation, extreme temperature shifts, etc. It's often too warm in the sun and too cold in the shade. We've spent the last few days in the Lake Titikaka area. The lake is the highest significant body of water in the world at 13,000 ft. Copacabana (the original, the Rio beach came later) is a small beach town popular with both locals and visitors as it's got the only public beach in landlocked Bolivia. We stayed at a great place above the beach where we enjoyed the sunsets and ate the local specialty fried whole rainbow trout every day.


The first thing we noticed in town was the MASSIVE bags of over-sized, semi-stale, semi-sweet popcorn being sold at every corner. Delicious, we've had a constant supply going.

Wandering up to the cathedral that dominates the center of town we stumbled onto another peculiarity. Dozens of cars around the cathedral decked out in flowers with a white-robed priest flinging holy water into the car and on the owners, while the owners are spraying champagne on the engine and in the trunk, and kids are setting off fireworks everywhere. Apparently this ritual of blessing new cars is to ensure the longevity of both car and driver. The combination of alcohol on the engine and fireworks didn't seem like the best idea to us, but who are we to judge.

We took a boat over to Isla del Sol, a beautiful island in the lake which is at the heart of the Inca creation story. The sun supposedly emerged from this island, and apparently this belief is still held by many locals who tend to blend the older indigenous beliefs with the more recent catholic ones brought over with the Spanish. We spent the day walking the entire length of the island along an Inca path over the spine of the island. Deep blue waters, and the snowcapped peaks in the distance made for an incredible hike.

Locating an ATM in this part of Bolivia has turned out to be more challenging than expected and we were down to our last 20 dollars, still needing to pay for our room, food, return boat and bus to La Paz. We got a kick out of the response we repeatedly got trying to change the dollars into bolivianos. We're on a remote island and the women running tiny little stores would tell us the US economy was in big trouble and they didn't want any dollars. We finally found someone willing to exchange some money at a greatly depressed rate and were able to get back to the mainland. We got dropped off about 20 km from Copa and took another great trek back along the perimeter of the lake past small farming communities and kids with sun-burnt cheeks.

The bus to La Paz was another exciting one, driving by the 20,000+ ft Cordilla range and the ever exciting river crossing where everyone gets off the bus so that it can be ferried across while the passengers take a far too small motor boat, not to mention the dramatic drop into La Paz itself as the city clings precipitously to the sides of its valley. I hope an earthquake never chooses this spot.

Off to explore some recommendations from Tara and Melissa. Snow is on the forecast for today!

Hasta luego.

PS. For those I didn´t tell I´ve revamped my photo website - www.iamnader.com - with a bunch of new photos from the first leg of our year. Enjoy!