Feliz Navidad from Copacabana!

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We crossed from Puno, Peru, to Copacabana, Boliva on Dec. 23rd. It was our nicest land crossing ever. They had English-speaking employees on the tourist bus to guide us through the easy-going border crossing. We arrived in town and tracked down Hotel Rosario on the edge of the lake. Rosario was comforable and handsome, though very conventional - a '3 star hotel' whatever 3 stars mean in Bolivan hospitality. One really odd thing about the hotel: they had several signs posted about apologizing for any 'inconveniences' and assuring us that they were trying to do better. I guess they didn't want us to expect too much. As it was, our room had a space heater and a T.V., luxuries we had generally done without. Feeling a little worse for wear after recent travels, we spent most of the day happy in our room.

We awoke on Christmas Eve without real firm plans except to call our folks and try and track down our Danish firends Line and Rene, who were supposed to be in town. We chanced upon them in one of the few internet cafes in town while we were trying to call our parents. They had plans for Christmas Eva dinner back at Rosario with a couple of other Danish couples they met on the road, and they invited us to join them. We left Line and Rene to cat with the folks, buy stuff for the after dinner party, and move from Hotel Rosario into our new digs.

For christmas eve we enjoyed the nicest accomodations of our whole trip, a spacious cabin overloooking the lake, complete with hammocks, a small kitchen, and a wood fireplace at Hostal Osalas. Not only were our accomodations beautiful, but they were a great deal - only $40 US versus $70 US at Hotel Rosario. We spent the late afternoon enjoying our cabin as I prepared some mulled wine or glug to have that night.

We returned to Hotel Rosario for dinner that night. I must confess I wasn't sure how the evening would go: we would be the shortest, darkest, and least Danish-speaking couple there. The warm greetings of our new, giant, blond friends dispelled any cahnce of awkwardness. They were all adept at English, and we kept up a lively converstation throughout the meal. Eva and I felt as welcome as if we went to Denmark for Christmas every year. As for the meal, well "trying to improve" Rosario opted for a modern, fancified version of the standard Christmas dinner. The entree course was a reasonable salad bar. The main course was a roll of turkey breast meat wrapped around a bread stuffing, served with a cranberry puree. The outside of the roll was deep-fried. Eva thought the roll was too dry. I thought it was tasty enough, but no one at our table was satisfied. While our Christmas dinner traditions all varied (some like me, ate turkey, others had pheasant, and one guy at the table had boar), everyone was used a large serving of meat, plus a large serving of potato. We all expected Christmas dinner to be hearty, and the faux elegance of the Rosario dinner didn't cut it!

I had been wondering for some time about the Christmas traditions of the local people, as both Peru and Boliva are heavily Catholic. The build-up to Christmas had been very understated. Except for some kind of heavily preserved fruit cake/bread in a box, there were few new goods in the stores to mark the season. The only Christmas lights were in the hotels, tourist restuarants, and a few of the public squares. The Danes had hear rumors of a procession of the Virgin Mary that night, followed by a service in the Catholic church. They were not Catholics, but they curious as I was to witness the local Christmas observations. And so, following dinner, around 10:30 pm., we all headed into the streets looking for a religous procession. Perhaps we just missed it, but we didn't encounter any procession. Most of the streets were quiet and dark. We followed the only noise we heard up to the big Catholic church. There was indeed a Christmas Eve mass, and it was well attended. The church was completely filled, and there were dozens of people in a courtyard just outside of the church. A priest was standing in the front of the church, giving a sermon. Loudspeakers projected his sermon to the crowd in the courtyard. We remained in the courtyard for a few minutes listening to the sermon. Occasionally space would open in the back for one of us to stick a head and watch the priest for a little while. Honestly there wasn't much going on for non Catholic, non Spanish speakers to apprciate, and our group left the after a few minutes.

We were heading back to the Danes' hotel room for a little more partying when we were surprised to discover a completely secular side to the Bolivian Christmas. The market was still open upon even though it was almost 11 pm, and it was crowded and bustling. The merchants were offering their normal ware, which always included wine and beer. The also had the boxed fruit cake I mentioned above, and they even had toys! Toys were normally hard to spot in the Peru and Boliva (except in the big cities), but here they were: dolls, and toy guns and plastic cars. To be sure there were no high end items like video games, but the SPIRIT of a secular Christmas was surprisingly strong.

We went back to the Danes' place and celebrated with them for the rest of the night. We drank glug and played a dumb game testing knowledge of popular English language music. Alas Team North America was trounced by Team Denmark, and Team Denmark turned out to be gloaters. We parted as friends around 2 am, before anything regrettable was said.

It was late when Eva and I returned to our cabin, but it was such a great place we didn't want to turn in. I really wanted to try out our fireplace. The fire proved tricky to start, and I'm blaming it on the high altitude. Eventually I got it going, and we enjoyed a warm night with a nice fire.

We really really wanted to stay in our cabin the next morning. Alas, it was already booked. Almost everything in town was booked. We were as homeless as Mary and Joseph. We decided to take a ferry to the Isla del Sol, an island in the lake. We had no guarantees of lodging there either, but we couldn't be that unlucky.

Our ferry wasn't until the afternoon. In the morning we did what most homeless people do: we slept on a park bench. The park was next to the church, where something really strange was going on. Yesterday, our Danish friends mentioned that they had run into a Bolivian family who were celebrating the 20th birthday of their truck. They had taken the truck from some nearby town into Copacabana to get their truck blessed at the Catholic church. The church is known as good place to get a vehicle blessed. A blessing here helps keep it running for a few more years. Well, Christmas day was a very popular day for vehicle blessings. We saw about forty vehicles lined up around the church for the blessing. There were all kinds, from compact little cars, to trucks and even buses. All the vehicles were brightly decorated with colorful ribbons and bows. A half dozen people were burning incense. One woman was pouring beer on her tires. Several men made a half circle around the open hood of their truck. They were praying over the engine.

I figured we had seen all of a Copacabana Christmas: the religious, the secular, and the odd hybrid - prayers said over ancient US trucks. Time to move on. We headed to the waterfront for our afternoon ride. They loaded us in pretty tight. As we set out for the two hour journey into the lake, I wondered if the ferry had ever been blessed.

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Our 2009 Christmas letter to our friends and family:


Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas and Happy

Holidays!

The past year of 2009 has been most eventful for the two of us. Eva finally finished her Ph.D. in June with a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Washington in Seattle. We are currently on a one-year adventure traveling almost literally around the world. We stashed our stuff with friends in Seattle (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!) and drove cross-country to Chicago last August, stopping by Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, and the Badlands. After a week with Eva´s family, we flew up to Toronto to visit friends and traveled to Montreal where George got his US permanent residence. After visiting more friends in Ottawa, we flew to Newfoundland to spend time with George´s family. After visiting another friend in Florida, we flew down to Guatemala and spent the next two-and-a-half months traveling through Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. We left Costa Rica in mid-November for Peru where we have been until yesterday when we crossed into Bolivia.

We are now in the small town of Copacabana in Bolivia next to Lake Titicaca where we will be spending our Christmas. We plan on spending another few weeks in Bolivia before heading to Argentina, where we will remain until the end of February. From there, our travel plans will take us further to New Zealand, Australia, and China.

It has been quite a trip thus far and we invite you all to read about our adventures on our blog (follow the ¨George and Eva¨ link on top or to the left). We are currently (and we forsee this to be a constant) about a month behind on our blog, but we will try our best to update it as much as we can during our travels.

We wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and our very best for the upcoming year!


Love always,

George & Eva 😊



P.S. We miss you all and would love to hear from you - so please feel free to drop us an email sometime!

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Photos

Lake Titicaca at sunset -
view of the Copacabana harbor from Hotel Rosario.

Christmas Eve
dinner with three Danish couples at Hotel Rosario.

Christmas Eve dinner
Turkey rolls with plum sauce (and wine, of course).

Navidad decorations in our cabin
The llama was a gift from George. =)

Our cabin at Hotel Olas
with George in the kitchenette making his mulled wine.

Comments

[Vaniah]

Blog update
Hope you don't mind but you made it to our blog http://going-full-circle.blogspot.com/2010/02/hikes-beers-in-bariloche.html - let me know if you want me to take it down. Hope all is well with you and that you are enjoying the next stage of your trip. Keep in touch. Vaniah & Johan