Copacabana & Isla del Sol, Lake Titicaca- Bolivia

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It is not every day you take a bus and are asked to leave the bus, take a boat across the water whilst your bus travels on a small wooden boat across the water, for you to hopefully meet it on the other side, but that’s exactly what happened on the way to Copacabana. The town itself, Copacabana is situated right on the bank of Lake Titicaca. When we arrived we hadn’t noticed google maps had decided to change our hotel to a different hotel. After checking in and getting to our room we then realised we were in the wrong place and had to sheepishly check out and find our right hostel. Our first day we headed up the hill next to the town to get a great view overlooking Copacabana, the lake and Isla Del Sol- the island of sun in the distance. We checked out the cathedral and walked around town. The town seemed to only be half built. Partly finished buildings and building materials were everywhere. We then went for food in a bar overlooking the lake. The following day we boated over to Isla del Sol, a very choppy ride, even with travel sickness pills it still wasn’t easy. I am always amazed at some people who seem completely unphased by boats. Eventually, after a stop off at the southern main town of the island, Yumani we made our final stop at Challapampa, we were so cold by this stage we needed to stop off for hot chocolate and add layers. This part of the town was pretty small but fairly spread out. Along the way out of town and onto the main track to walk across the island, we passed some inca ruins and inca carved stone circles, almost like a table with chairs around it. The walk over was really nice and reminded me of some of the views you get from Shetland or Orkney in Scotland. Typically despite visiting the sun island, we had no sun and despite it being the dry season, we did get rain. Eventually we made it to Yumani, the islands biggest village, we stopped off for food- a whole pizza for me, before heading down the steep, slippery slope in the rain to our hostel, a comfortable place if not cold and with a restaurant that overlooked the harbour. There must be a tradition in Bolivia that cholitas- the older women only address men, as when Sarah went for breakfast the following morning, she didn’t get served until I arrived, upon which point I was shown the menu and asked what kind of eggs we would like. This reminded me of the time we were in Japan and the same thing happened. We then headed to the harbour which was organised so badly that we almost ended up on the wrong boat. The waves back were really choppy that the captains said at one point they may not be able to land in Copacabana and we may have to travel to Copacabana by car. Fortunately this didn’t happen and we were back in the main town just under 2 hours later. The weather has been pretty chilly in this area, especially when the sun disappears, hopefully after Puno, we will get some sun later in Peru.

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