Copacabana, Bolivia

My last stop in Bolivia was the small town of Copacabana on Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is a huge lake (about 80km by 100km) that sits on the border between Peru and Bolivia. The lake and its islands are important sites from the Inca civilization. Copacabana is a quaint little town that sits right on the edge of the lake. Besides the tourism which is pretty big there, Copacabana is known for its massive church which houses the famous Virgin of Copacabana (the Copacabana in Brazil is named after her). The church is surrounded by a huge plaza which is enclosed by a really tall wall. There are immense crosses inside the plaza as well as beautifully designed towers. Inside the church is decorated with amazing amounts of gold and statues and art. To see the virgin you walk through this dark and damp hall on the side of the church. The only light comes from candles that people have lit to pray with. At the end of the narrow hall there is a huge glass case in which the virgin is housed. All around the case are plaques and writings of thanks to the virgin.

The rest of the town is made up of one street that runs along the beach of the lake (mostly filled with nicer hotels) and a street that runs from the lake up towards the church that is filled with restaurants, tourist offices and street vendors. I stayed in a hostel about 10 minutes walking from the beach. It wasn’t anything fancy but the showers were hot and my double room cost me $3 per night. The only crappy part was that there wasn’t any heat and my room didn’t get any sunlight in the day so there were times when it was colder inside my room than outside.

I did a tour of the Isla del Sol in which I took a boat (along with a ton of other tourists) out to the island and then we walked around looking at ruins, learning about the Inca and current culture and just enjoying the views. The lake is seriously one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. It goes on as far as the eye can see and is this amazing color of blue that looks even more spectacular next to the clear sky. It was quite a bit of trekking and I got really sunburned but it was an incredible experience.

Along the tour I met 3 Argentine guys and later we realized that we were on the same bus to Peru the following day. We ended up going out to dinner that night and I had this great Bolivian dish of french fries, sliced beef, egg, tomato, sausage and some sort of spicy sauce. Mmmmmm! Later we went out drinking - Fernet of course (a really typical Argentine drink) - and I ended up having this intense conversation with one of the guys about politics and dictatorships and the drug war. Sadly, I felt like it was the first intelligent conversation I’ve had in a while . . . While we were at the bar a few of the people I had met in Sucre showed up so we all ended up hanging out and drinking together. We stayed out pretty late and around 3 or 4 am when I tried to go back to my hostel I realized that it has a curfew . . . After about 5 minutes of knocking I gave up and went and stayed with the group I met in Sucre. Lesson: always check to see if hostels close up at a certain hour.

The next day I boarded a bus and headed for Peru with the Argentines.