Before reaching Bolivia’s Copacabana (unfortunately not Barry Manilow’s “hottest spot north of Havana”) we had to endure a 3 hour break at Puno in Peru where we almost froze to death. Joined on our bus trip by our new travelling companion Hannah “Rambo” Riley from Leeds, we tried to keep ourselves warm in the bus station by sitting next to an electric heater and ordering hot chocolates but the heater broke and the hot chocolates tasted like gone off milk. To add insult to injury they charged us 50p to go to the toilet and for that you only got 5 sheets of toilet paper.
It doesn't get much colder than this
But we eventually got our second bus and after some fun and games with the Bolivian immigration officers (and yes I am being saracstic) we finally made it to Copacabana on the shores of the beautifully blue Lake Titicaca.
Our main activity in Copacabana was a trip to the Isla del Sol – apparently the spiritual birthplace of the Incas. The slowest boat ever took us across to the island literally taking 2 hours to cover about a kilometre and at one point we all had to move up to the front to try and make the vessel go faster! It didn’t, but eventually we reached the north shore and were ushered into a small museum where a Bolivian guy spouted some Spanish at us. We think he may have been our guide for the day but we quickly legged it to start our own tour of the island.
Beautiful Lake Titicaca
On the island we visited the usual “rocks and ruins” but it really was the clear blue waters of the lake that was the spectacle of the place. To take full advantage of this we had to walk 8km across the island to the south shore After improving our fitness levels on the inca trail we thought this would be a doddle but soon the rising temperatures and rising paths proved a bit of a difficulty!
World's strongest man?
However we finally made it to the south shore where our high speed catamaran (note the further sarcasm) took us back to the mainland. En route we stopped at some floating islands refusing to pay the 20p fee to hop on to them (we are stingy backpackers after all!) . Although these were good to see they meant the journey back was even longer and by the time we got back to the mainland a lot of people were looking a bit sick. One guy was so eager to get off he ended up putting his foot through the window on exiting!
After our ordeal (OK it wasn’t that bad) we treated ourselves in the evening with a trip to the fish kiosks on the beachfront to sample the local trout washed down with a few bottles of wine and crowned with some apple pie! Yum yum!
Interesting offerings!
The boats weren't all that bad
In future our recommendation to anyone wanting to go across to the Isla del Sol is to forget the boat and instead opt for one of the 100 swan pedaloes banked on the beach – you’d get there a lot quicker.
ROG
