Copacabana

Copacabana is a famous beach in Brazil and also a small, lakeside town in Bolivia. It is nestled on the bank of Lake Titicaca. This small town has been a place for pilgrams for centuries. Initially, it was a sacred place to the Incas.

We arrived and went into the first cheap place we saw... you get what you paid for. It was a room with a tv (only 3 spanish channels) and two beds. It was nothing to write home about, but it worked out ok. We spent very little time in the room anyway.

Our first morning there, we awoke early to ensure we could catch the boat to the Isla del Sol (Isle of the Sun). The boat ride took over an hour, which was an impossibly long time to me since I had an uneasy stomach. The entire gentle ride is through the vast and blue Lake Titicaca. When you arrive to the small island, you learn quickly there are no paved roads or cars. There is a path that takes you from one side of the island to the other. It took us roughly 3 hours to do it and along the way we saw several different Incan ruins. The Incans believed that the world originated on these islands. Incans would make a pilgramage to the island in order to ask for good luck and favors.

At times the path was easy, but towards the end it got pretty steep upwards. We had the pleasure of cruising down very quickly in an attempt to catch our boat. We missed it, but another driver accepted our ticket anyway.

When we got back to Copacabana, we had to sort out our depature to Peru. We soon learned that there was no ATM in town and we were almost out of Bolivianos. As luck has it, American dollars are accepted everywhere so we cashed in some USD to buy our ticket to Cuzsco. We then found a place to exchange another 20 USD in order to pay the hostel and have enough money for dinner. It was a hectic hour getting it all sorted out, but we managed. Thanks to the leftover American bills we had.

Our second morning in Copacabana, we visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana. This cathedral was not only large, but very ornate. It is home to the Virgin of Copacabana, a small carved figured by an indgenious Bolivian as welll as the patron saint of Bolivia. The cathedral and Virigin are interwoven with the local tradition of the Earth Mother, Pachamama. Bolivians continue to come pay homage and ask the Virgin for special things. They even bless the cars here.

After snagging an apple and some bread for breakfast, we headed to the bus office to wait for our bus. Yippie. We waited for about 20 minutes and then were annoyed and worried we had done something wrong. After 35 minutes, the lady that sold us the ticket showed up and told us 5 more minutes. After an hour, a different lady escorted us to a taxi. Thus began our sort of curious crossing to Peru. We took a short taxi ride to the border while the new gal was on the phone back in forth working to get us a ride to Cuzsco that evening. Somehow, the bus that was supposed to take us to the border forgot us, through no fault of our own. We went to get our exit stamps and then she gestured us to another guy. Jesus came up to us and said hed take care of us, no problem. We walked across the bridge to the Peru side. The immigration office was empty except for us and one employee. After we filled out the forms, the guy went to stamp and his stamp was set to Feburary. He made me fill out a new form and changed the date. It was so wierd, we clearly were not the first people to pass through that day. Then we took another taxi to Puno. SWEET! This taxi ride was like an hour. It was actually almost lucky we missed our first bus, we never would have gotten two direct taxis otherwise. Jesus arranged for our bus from Puno to Cuzsco and then arranged for a place for us to stay in Cuzsco. When we finally arrived in Cuzsco (after 9 pm) we had been traveling for about 11 hours and were exhausted. Our hostel turned out to be pretty shady, so we ate dinner and stayed on the internet until we were tired for bed.