Tourist in my Own Town

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This past weekend was my last full weekend in La Paz so I spent it with a combination of tourist attractions and livin' like a local.

I spent one full day in Lake Titicaca which is the highest lake (at 12,500 ft) in the world. It borders Bolivia and Peru in the Andes Mountains. It takes about 2.5 hours to get there from La Paz. Part of the trip we took a small boat and our bus took a ferry to cross a section of the lake. The main city, on the Bolivian side is Copacabana (yes I played the song over and over again in the bus 😊 First I visited some of the interesting architecture in the city including the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana and this super cool Hostal las Olas.

The Basilica was built in 1670 and is knows at the Temple of the Sun. It remains as one of two sacred places important both to the indigenous people and Catholics. Hostal las Olas was contracted by two local designers. The structures are shaped like teepees, snails, turtles and other natural forms. The design represents their pass for organic architecture and building without any straight lines.

Then we took an hour long boat ride through Lake Titicaca to get to Sun Island. This is a small island that you can hike to the top to see great views of the lake. It appears that llamas and donkeys are the only way to transport items around the island so we passed a lot them loaded down with beer (haha).

I also visited a large botanical garden, watched the World Cup at a bar full of locals, and managed to find more markets to explore. I realized that the last time I saw a movie in the theater was ~ 5 years ago when I saw Star Wars in Ecuador. I decided to keep the trend alive of only seeing movies in SA and went to see a movie here. The rainy season has finally started here so I went during a morning thunderstorm. But, it wouldn't be a movie in Bolivia if the power didn't go out and they had to restart the movie twice, rewind it, and turn the English translation back on.

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[Beth]

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Prayers for you and safe travels home, take care