Copacabana

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So we managed to escape Puno by getting a boat across Lake Titicaca to the border of Bolivia where we caught a collectivo to the very touristy lakeside town of Copacabana. We got the boat at 7am and the captain only had one eye. Marvelous. It was 8 hours to Bolivia and it was stunning weather all the way. Laura severely burnt her nose and I spent most of the time practicing my Spanish verbs and taking in the scenery. Every hour or so a guy who worked on the boat had to take up the floor boards and scoop out water coming in from the bottom of the boat. Very reassuring. So I decided to spend most of my time on the roof. That way I didn’t have to see how much water they needed to bail out and I´d also be the last to sink! The cheeky buggers charged us $20 for the journey and then dropped us about 100m from shore so guys in row boats had to take us the rest of the way and then demanded more money! We didn’t have any soles left so we pretty much had to grab our stuff and run away, as did most of the other tourists from the boat!

Copacabana is really quite nice and its great being back in Bolivia with Bolivian prices (1.10gbp per night in a decent hostel and dinner for about the same!) Although the locals do really take the piss in the market charging 2 or 3 times more than they´ed charge another local for things. Alot of them are real chancers but i don’t blame them. With almost everything we buy there´s an “impuesto blanco” or “white tax” I´m getting quite good at bartering though!

Our first day here we walked up to a viewpoint overlooking the town and the lake. Lake Titicaca is just massive and totally stunning, from Copacabana you can see where Bolivia ends and Peru begins just by the change in landscape. The town is at about 3800m above sea level so it was really tiring walking up the steep steps but the view at the top was well worth it. It was really strange though because on the summit there were loads of shrines to various saints and then amongst them were little old ladies selling toy cars and toy houses. How random! I didn’t see those kinds of stalls anywhere in the market or in the centre of town, just at the top of the mountain! There was also a man selling what looked like bits of Christmas trees which we later found out were plots of land that you could buy for 10 bolivianos! (About 70p) you get a contract and everything. If I´d known I probably would have bought one just so I could own a bit of Bolivia! What a great Christmas present for people! We spent most of the rest of the day wandering round the markets. There were stalls with whole cows hanging up and sheep’s heads and i had to move a pig’s trotter out of the way to point out a bit of ham i wanted! Lovely!

We found a nice enough hostel that sometimes had hot water but was right on the main street. Opposite was a fantastic restaurant that had lots of sofas and comfy seats and showed films for free so we watched "Something’s Gotta Give" while we ate dinner the first night and last night we curled up with tea and chocolate cake and watched "Meet the Fockers"! I don’t think I´ve been that warm and cosy since Chile!

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