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Published: August 25th 2007
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At The Copa Copacabana
And we thought Peru was a poor country!
After another 3 and a half hours on a bus around Lake Titicaca, we arrived at our first Bolivia destination - Copacabana. You know like the one in the Barry Manilow song. Little did we know that our timing was perfect, and there was a festival going on called The Fiesta Of The Virgin. I know it sounds like a seedy porno but it´s infact an annual festival where the Bolivian people ask the Mother Mary to grant all their wishes. Usually something to do with money or material possessions.
It took a while for us to find somewhere to stay because everyone had doubled their prices but eventually we scored a little room with an excellent view over the lake, set ourselves up for a weekend of traditional Bolivian music, dancing, and partying. Unfortunately for us "music and dancing did not even happen at the Copa.... we fell in love" (sorry couldn´t resist), and the festival consisted of thousands of street sellers trying to rip you off, fireworks without the fire (just the noise), and extremely drunk locals. They spray beer on their vehicles (even under the
bonnet) and then sprinkle confetti on so it sticks to the beer. They obviously don´t have Blue Peter in Bolivia or they´d have known to use Pritt Stick or sticky back plastic instead!
It also became apparent to us that there is no such thing as supermarkets over here and you have to buy all your food and drink from the street sellers. It´s a bit unnerving watching kids poop on the side of the street, their mothers picking it up after them like dogs, then you end up buying bread off her later in the day. No joke! Still, you gotta eat. Hygiene is obviously not of great importance and it was no suprise when Sal got her first dose of food poisioning. It also doesn´t help that for some reason people just decide to turn their water off. Hot water we could understand but cold? The water rates must be high over here or something!
Copacabana wasn´t all bad though - the cocktails were really cheap and we managed to get over to Isle Del Sol (Island Of The Sun) where the Inca Empire all began. After an extremely slow three hours, on a big boat
with a small engine, we arrived at the north of the island and the views were amazing. It´s surreal to think that we were almost 4000m above sea level stood by a lake that stretched as far as the eye could see. There are no cars on the island so we faced a 3 and a half hour walk to get to the the port in the South where the boat was picking us up from. It was a good walk past small Inca settlements and over the top of small mountains. It was nothing after Machu Picchu. We saw an early Inca fountain with 3 seperate streams each one representing the Inca law of "do not lie", "do not steal", and "do not be lazy". It´s supposed to give you eternal life if you drink from them but we didn´t because one bout of food poisioning is enough for one week!
Rurrenabaque
After a brief stop in the highest capital city in the world - La Paz - but unfortunatley also one of the shittiest city in the world (believe me, it´s not worth writing about), we took a sketchy one hour flight on a toy aeroplane, over
the snow-capped Andean mountains to a little town called Rurrenabaque. it was the first plane we´ve been on where you´re not shown where the emergency exits or life vests are. Safety first Bolivia! It was so nice to be back down at sea-level again and to be able to walk around in a pair of shorts in 38 degree heat.
Rurrenabaque is the best place to explore the Amazon basin from, and we booked ourselves onto a three day Pampas tour leaving the following day. After 3 hours on a bumpy dirt road in the back of a jeep we arrived to the National Park with one tyre less than we started with. We jumped into a boat and headed down the Yacuma River. Because the river is the only water source around for miles all the animals come here to drink and as such we saw hundreds of alligators, Caiman, Howler & Squirrel Monkeys, Capybaras, Turtles, and birds of all shapes and sizes on the way to our less than basic camp. It was great to lay in a hammock but the millions of mosquitos weren´t so much fun.
The folllowing day we went "Anaconda hunting". This
involved wearing wellies, and traipsing though waist-high, sometims head-high grass in about a foot of wet horse and cow shit looking for anything vaguely snake-like. It took about 5 seconds to realise that our boots had holes in them, and about 5 hours to realise there weren´t any snakes and to make our way back to camp snakeless. Disheartened as we were, our guide (Weeman) didn´t give up, and ironically enough found us an Anaconda about 5 metres away from camp. That afternoon, to clean off the animal shit, we went swimming with Pink Dolphins. I saw swimming with, but it was more like we jumped in and they swam off. The little buggers are a complete nightmare to get a piccy of as well coz they only show themselves for a second at a time, unlike the Gators at the side of the river that actually watch you swimming instead.
The sunsets and sunrises on the wetlands are beautiful, and it made it all the more worthwhile getting up extra early the following morning. After an hour or two of Piranha fishing, we returned to Rurrenabaque for me to begin my twelve hour food poisoning session. I think
we´re going to flag the old "bano compartido" and just stick to the privado ones from now on!!!
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