Copacabana is a town nestled on the shores of the very large Lake Titicaca. The lake is coloured deep blue, clear and shimmers in the sunlight like diamonds. As Copacabana is only a small town, we was unsure if it would hold our attention for the five relaxing days that we planned to stay here before Peru and the Inca trail. This town has a great atmosphere and is brimming with locals and their Bolivian way of life. This is the kind of town where the locals go to relax and have fun in there spare time; On weekends the lake shore is brimming with them paddling, washing themselves, making BBQs and playing games with their families by the lake. If you wanted you can hire a pedalo swan or kayak to paddle round or have a game of table football by the lake. Unfortunately however, them doing these activities has its downfalls as they are the worst litter bugs I have ever seen. Instead of taking their litter with them or placing it in the bins they leave it on the shore. It truly was shocking to watch as they are ruining their own environment by being unnecessarily careless and lazy. We watched one local drinking a can of beer and then tossing it into the lake! It's a shame because the lake is very beautiful.
The town itself is small but filled full of stalls and you can buy just about everything from clothes, shoes, stationary, pots and pans, fish, veg, bread and meat (even cheddar cheese!!!) It is a great Market and is full of traditional character as you see the locals laying out their wares on the floor! Jonathan bought himself a nice cowboy hat, in which one evening while sat having a beer a young child wandered past and exclaimed loudly to his mum "look mum, a real cowboy," which left us both in hysterics as his mum looked on embarrassed.
Being Easter week the town is very religious and we arrived on the day of a town celebration. Brass bands and Primary school children twirling batons made a parade which crusaded throughout the town with the local women walking in procession. There is also a tradition that we witnessed where they pour beer on each tyre of their car which blesses their vehicle and during festival week each car is dressed in flowers and ribbons. There's lots of festival regalia and religious souvenirs for sale by the church, which is probably the brightest part of the town as you see stall after stall of bright colours from the many decorations on offer.
Unfortunately though it also brings out the needy. In Bolivia some of these people truly are poor and you can't help but feel sorry for them. They are always very very old people that look like fragile little skeletons sat on the pavements wrapped up tightly in their shawls. We never normally give to beggars but you can't really blame them here as they don't look like they could do much else, so often we have untied our purse strings!
After a few days of relaxing and strolling by the lake we decided to go and explore the islands on Lake Titicaca, Isla del Sol (Sun Island) and Isla De La Luna (Moon Island). £6 for both of us for a full day trip out is quite a bargain even though we probably could have swam to the islands faster than the boat got us there. This made a nice change however and took us to two remote little villages which we wandered around for a few hours exploring.
Our hotel is run by very few staff and although quite a nice hotel (with a fab view of the lake from our room) it is let down by the people as they are quite miserable. The 'nicest' of the three, the reception man must be around 35 and comes across helpfull only when he wants to be. Breakfast is served between 7am and 9am although the morning of the island trip it wasn't even ready at 8am! We got back from dinner one night to find the reception man being swung around and slapped about the head by some Bolivian shop keeper woman who then chased him partly down the street cursing at him. He ran speedily past us and was not seen again till the following morning leaving no staff in the hotel at all.
There are many restaurants to choose from in this town, and although the majority are rubbish we have struck gold a couple of times and enjoyed Llama curry, Llama spaghetti bolognaise and another Llama spicy stew dish which all where equally tasty. They also make some tasty homemade soups here which in the cooler night temperatures have been very welcomed, and on the hot days some lovely 50p ice cream cones. The altitude is getting a little worrying as it is definately taking it's toll on Jonathan and myself. Dry flaky skin, dry lips, dizziness and tiredness are symptoms and cannot be cured no matter how much moisturiser you slap on. The Inca trail will be quite a challenge next week and as soon as it's finished we will be on the first bus back to sea level.
Unfortunately our trip in Copacabana didn't end as smoothly as it started. We had noticed the town had gotten quite quiet the last couple of days of our stay and what we thought where fireworks, banged continuously throughout the day and into the night. We think these bangs may have actually been gun shots. It turns out a protest had began (government issues) and we where actually blockaded into the town. Apparently the Bolivians love to protest and this happens quite often. On the morning of our bus departure to Cusco we were informed that no one could leave via cars/buses or by the boats in the lake. Rumours where going around that rocks where being thrown at people trying to leave by road and dynamite had been attached to the jetties on the lake to stop people accessing the boats and crossing to Puno in Peru. The boat trips to Isla Del Sol where also jeopardised and cancelled. The only option we had was to walk 9km through the countyside to the border. We had no choice being on a deadline for the Inca trail and being told that these strikes can last for days. 20kilo rucksacks on we slogged for two hours firstly stepping over the many trees and mud hills that the towns people had laid across the roads and then swiftly detouring over a few hills and into the countryside farms finally reaching Peru to find our bus would be a four hour wait because they wanted to use it to drop off people elsewhere first. As everyone was tired from the hike this didnt go down well and everyone started kicking off, so they sent a number of minibuses which would take us on the three hour trip to Puno where we would then catch a connecting bus to Cusco. Finally we could relax for abit and as luck would have it we were on a mini bus which was full of Brits from Lancashire and Liverpool. There's not many English in South America so this was quite a riot as we laughed and told our travelling tales and chatted about where we had been and where we were going to. Nice to have a decent conversation with some northerners as talking to other nationalities, although pleasant, it is not the same as they do not have the same humour! A Scouse lad called Drew had a funny story whereas he told us of a bus journey he had been on; Venturing to the toilet and in mid-flow the bus turned a violent corner and as he hadn't locked the door, he flew out, pants round his ankles flashing all and sundry to a bus full of passengers laughing at him. We was all in hysterics as he told this tale as being fellow bus travellers you could imagine it happening to yourself! 4 more new facebook friends made! Arriving in Puno, again no bus was waiting for us. Luckily after a nervous wait to see if we were actually stranded they told us a bus would take us to Cusco in the next half hour. A mad dash round some shops to grab any food we could lay our hands on we are now finally sat on the bus on our 8 hour journey, only a few hours behind schedule. Exhausted after our early and tiring start! Oh, and now we have just had a tyre blow up on the bus! A mad dash to change the tyre and away we go again.
Even though we have been in Bolivia only a short amount of time we have had a fantastic experience here and have seen some extraordinary sights. Time to think about and to sum up the Bolivia top 5! Hayls and Jonathan x