Peru to Bolivia

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Wednesday - Peru to Bolivia

We rose at 05.00 for breakfast in the restaurant car in time for the short walk to view the magnificent sunrise over the lake. Our cases were unloaded for our pickup at 06.30 for our journey to the Bolivian border. En route we stopped at a local village cattle market. On a Wednesday it is the small animal market - sheep, pigs, chickens, llamas, alpacas, guinea pigs, puppies, etc. We were amused to see the buyers putting full grown llamas in the back of estate cars and live sheep on the roof racks. Our next short stop was at a mirador with wonderful views over lake Titicaca. We journeyed on to the border with Bolivia where our luggage was transferred by person-powered tricycle over the border to our awaiting vehicle, which we joined after a trouble free border control.

We stopped in the small town of Copacabana on the shores of the lake, to visit the church. Outside in a bright market were several cars decorated with garlands, they were outside the church awaiting a blessing! This is a traditional good luck blessing for newly purchased vehicles even if they are bought second hand. We walked down to the shore passing traditionally dressed Bolivian ladies and a very strange looking hotel to join our hydrofoil for an exhilarating thirty minute journey to Moon Island. The view across the lake including the snow capped Andean mountains, rising to over 20,000 feet were amazing.

On Moon Island we visited the Inca ruins of the Uyu Sun Virgins Temple where young high born Inca maidens were housed and schooled in the arts of weaving, dressmaking, dancing and other wifely skills. They were on the Island to preserve their virginity pending their their selection by young Inca men choosing them as wives, this ceremony was conducted on nearby Sun Island which was our next destination. Here we saw the fountain where the young men cleansed themselves before climbing the steps. When the Spanish invaded they mistakenly thought that the fountain was a "Fountain of Youth" as it is called today. Sun Island was a sacred rock where the Incas believed that their founding parents, Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, emerged from the waters of Lake Titicaca at the call of the sun god. We had lunch in a delightful spot overlooking the lake and mountains. We returned to the mainland by hydrofoil. During the sailing we were entertained by our guide with a customary Inca Blessings with water and flowers and offered the traditional Bolivian drink chaulfly. We continued our journey to La Paz, stopping briefly at the open air museum of Altiplano where we were shown the traditional way of making reed boats.

It was noticeable that in Bolivia more of the buildings were complete, unlike Peru where hardly any were finished. We were advised that this was due to a change in the tax law four years ago which now demanded that house tax was payable when you started living in a property as opposed to when it was finished.

We were driven through the outskirts of La Paz, the unofficial capital of Bolivia, at an altitude of approximately 3,600 meters. The homes of the now wealthy indigenous population, the Aymaras, could be identified by their brightly coloured facades and the luxurious penthouse accommodation where they now lived.

Bolivia is trying to assist the local people with keeping safe on the roads and the state employs hundreds of people to dress as zebras and stand on the zebra crossings to encourage people to use them. They were very jolly, dancing and waving at passing cars.

The view of central La Paz enclosed by mountains was stunning. Apparently there are building regulations regarding the amount of open land to built on land. It seemed that everywhere was built on, there were no parks and very few gardens.

There are four cable car routes for commuting around the city and another eight are planned to be completed by 2020. It is dominated by Mount Illimani rising to over 6,000 meters.

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