Onto the Altiplano

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The journey from Copacabana to La Paz has some interesting aspects of its own. Firstly Copacabana is situated on a small peninsula of Bolivian territory that is completely cut off from the rest of the country by Peru. Looking at the map the day before I had realized this and was intrigued to see how we would get across the southern end of Titicaca without having to recross into Peru. The bus left Copacabana at about 10am and proceeded to climb up over the highest passes of the peninsula, away from any land route to the rest of Bolivia. The other side of the peninsula faces mainland Bolivia across a fairly narrow stretch of water that it became apparent we were to cross. At first I thought that there might have been a bridge but quickly realized that there is simply no way a country as poor as Bolivia could afford to build one. Ferry perhaps? Yes, but not the sought I had in mind.

The bus trundled down to a small waterfront village centered around a series of wharfs. Moored at some of these wharfs were some very basic looking wooden barges that seemed just the right size for buses to drive onto. We were ordered off our bus and onto a small passenger boat that took us across the water whilst the bus was ferried across separately. We were reunited with our bus and were back on our way. It was novel and relieving that our bus did not sink with all our worldly possessions (and Hannah who was too sleepy to get off in time) on board.

After this we were onto the vast expanse of the Altiplano (high plain) that runs from the shores of Titicaca for thousands of kilometers south to the pampas of Argentina. Here for the first time I was struck by the unimaginable size of the journey Eddie and I were undertaking. The Altiplano is flanked both east and west by two enormous snowcapped chains of the Andes but the plain itself is fairly flat terrain, rolling on and on without end. With a clear blue sky above and the glistening peaks of the Cordillera Real on our left we sped down the highway to La Paz. I had never seen such a huge and empty landscape nor been so acutely aware of the enormity of the distances involved in crossing a continent.

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Photos

Andes and Altiplano
They call the Altiplano the Tibet of the Americas