Bolivian Adventure: Copacapana and the Lago
Trip Start
May 18, 2007
1
24
43
Trip End
Jul 28, 2007
Copacabana,
Bolivia
Monday, July 16, 2007
I gobbled down breakfast (too bad, the buffet was nice...), left my luggage at the desk, and ran onto our very luxurious bus, parked outside the hotel. I was about 10 minutes late - not the best first impression to make on my fellow group members but that's the best I could do after only 4 hours of sleep.
I said a loud "hi!", and was greeted at the very front of the bus by a Bolivian man who introduced himself as Juan, and promptly asked me if my payment of $7 to his driver the night before had been a tip, or the fare for the airport transfer. I told him I had already paid the transfer to KE; he knew, and agreed! He said that the driver had been confused ("confused", really?) and that I should not have paid him. Juan then gave me my money back for the airport transfer. Huh, figure that one out! I was quite impressed, and thought that, I really should learn to give people the benefit of the doubt more often (don't laugh...).
Juan then left us, and I got my first glimpse of all my travel companions -- see the "cast of characters" in the previous entry. The bus was large, more luxurious than I had expected, and I sat at the front while everyone was spread out throughout the whole vehicle.
01 - Sunny morning in Bolivia
We even had a "loo" at the back, which came in handy, as our bus ride was a bit longer than expected.We set off from the Hotel Rosario around 9, and quickly climbed our way up towards El Alto (not the airport, the suburb). What a view! As we reached a certain overpass on the highway, we stopped, disembarked, and took pictures of the city. I finally had a chance to start introducing myself to my fellow travellers... As it turns out, with a crowd of Bolivians around us heading to the market, not to mention beggars on the ground trying to get our attention, and the fast-traffic highway just a few yards away - this wasn't the best spot to exchange social pleasantries, so we all quickly got back in the bus for our ride towards Tihuanaco.
We got there by late morning, after driving through the very grandiose Bolivian Altiplano, with stupendous views of the Cordillera Real in the distance. The visit of Tihuanaco, an archaeological site dating back about, oh, a few centuries prior to the Incas, was a little anti-climactic. We discovered that while Piter speaks very good English, he speaks it very slowly. So his explanations of various Tihuanaco artifacts and architecture were a little long-winded.
After spending a fair bit of time exploring ruins in Peru, I was underwhelmed by the scale of Tihuanaco, but still impressed by the architecture. Nonetheless, I had a distinct feeling of "enough ruins already!", and it didn't take much of a look at my companions to realize that they were, for the most part, bored out of their minds.
We had a pleasant lunch nearby, during which we continued with introductions.
02 - Lego blocks
I had a nice chat with Bo, William, Piter and Kate, at one end of the table. Upon getting back on the bus, Piter asked if we were interested in seeing the museum. It took half a second for Ro to respond with a resounding "no!", which was confirmed by all of us very quickly. 'Nuf ruins...
Back on the bus, and finally heading towards Lake Titicaca. It had been over a month since my visit to the lake on the Peruvian side. I wasn't sure if I'd find this repetitive. I fell asleep for a bit, and woke up to this beautiful expanse of deep blue water to the left of the bus. It wasn't repetitive, it was just stunning.
We eventually reached a little place called San Pablo de Iquina (or was it San Pedro?), where we disembarked, and the bus was put on a platform ferry, while we got on a tender, to cross the narrowest part of the lake. Without this very successful ferry service, we would have had to drive very far around the lake.
Of course, this little boat ride, at this point of the day, elicited a few "this wasn't on the itinerary!", mainly from Jeff, Judy, and Ro, who seemed, right from the start, hell-bent on having us follow the high-level itinerary provided by KE as if our lives depended on it. Had they looked at a map of the lake, they would have realized that going from San Pablo to San Pedro by ferry (could be the other way around...) was the only, and obvious, option.
Once on the other side, we got back on the bus for another hour, or two, and eventually arrived in the very charming little town of Copacabana, nestled on the shore of Lake Titicaca, with an unbeatable view of the sun setting over the lake.
We all wished, by that point, that we could have arrived earlier in Copacabana, as the Hotel Rosario by the Lake was fantastic, the views were beautiful, and the town seemed to have much to offer.
03 - On the way to the market in El Alto
Oh well. Catrina and I made the best of it, and went hunting for a pre-dinner drink in the town. We found a nice little place, had some great Chilean wine, and made it back to the hotel just in time for dinner. The room was very comfortable, the hot shower very hot, and I promptly fell asleep that night.
The next morning, the whole group went for a "guided tour" of the town. Now - in case all of you are humming "At the Copa... Copacabana..." by now, let me tell you that the song Copacabana was written about a place in Brazil, not this little Catholic pilgrimage centre on the shores of Lake Titicaca, which the "Virgen de Copacabana" calls home. We walked about town, visited the beautiful church of Spanish architecture with clear Moorish influences, saw briefly the statue of the "virgen", and then headed towards the market area.
Giant peanuts, giant popcorn, giant dried pasta greeted us on the streets, where "cholitas" dressed in colourful skirts and shawls, and sporting long black braids and bowler hats, were clearly a little weary of all these gringos in a pack. We spread out a bit (I wasn't used to this herd mentality anymore), and walked around the market for a short while. The produce and meat sections were definitely worth a few pictures - our vegetarian friends in the group expected the rest of us to convert, based on the meat displays...
We headed back to the hotel for a quick coffee/tea and bio-break, and an attempt to settle what had become Ro's personal challenge of not paying extra for a "single supplement", that she maintained she had already paid to KE.
04 - The Bolivian Altiplano
In defence of KE, their literature states very clearly that the single supplement applies to camping and La Paz accommodations, but NOT to other hotels along the way. So Ro was fighting an uphill battle, but neither Piter or Kate produced the said-literature, or other documentation, to put the argument to rest, and this remained a bit of a bitter point for a few days.We walked down to the port of Copacabana (lakeside quay, really), and hopped on the boat that was to take us to the Isla del Sol. The boat was equipped with an internal cabin with seats for all of us, as well as a "sun deck", and two outboard engines. For some reason that will forever remain unknown, the captain chose to operate only one engine. As a result, our advertised 1.5 hour boat ride became a "three hour tour" (yes, you can all hum along to the Gilligan's Island theme song).
Did I care? Not in the least. We were cruising gently on Lake Titicaca, in Bolivia, thousands of miles away from work, office, traffic jams, pressure and stress. The weather was lovely - the sun bright in the cloudless sky, a little cool, but not cold. To be accurate, I did care -- I cared to the extent that some of my fellow group members complained that we weren't getting to the island fast enough. It's not just about the destination, folks, sometimes it is about the journey...
Well, we did eventually get there. I was glad to find a baņo (like the rest of us), but I felt very relaxed after a nice snooze on the boat. We'd had snacks with us, and upon landing on the island, we started our three-hour (again, that magic number) hike across the island.
05 - Ruins at Tihuanaco
The goal was acclimatization -- as most of us had just come from sea level a couple of days earlier. After six weeks in Peru, I was well acclimatized, and felt strong while walking on Isla del Sol. I could tell some of the others were feeling the altitude -- but I already knew that within a few days, they'd be way ahead of me on the trail...Isla del Sol was stunning. Prettier than the Peruvian islands I had visited. The walk was great, and the scenery kept changing with every curve in the path.
We reached Inca ruins. Ruins, again. Not only that, Piter started telling us the legend of
Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, the origin of the Incas. In his halting English, the legend took forever. I had just finished teaching it to my little kids in Arequipa the week before, in SPANISH, and I could have probably told the whole story faster than he did. Once again, the group was quickly fanning out away from Piter as he talked, in an effort to escape... Not a group of archaeologists, a group of trekkers!
By late afternoon, we reached the unbelievable site of the Estancia Ecolodge, a gorgeous ensemble of little adobe buildings spilt over the side of the island, overlooking the lake and the distant mountains. Each hut was equipped with comfy beds and loads of blankets, a very modern and stylish slate bathroom, with solar hot shower, and electricity. After our afternoon tea in the dining room hut, Catrina and I quickly settled in, and took advantage of the hot water showers.
Meeting with the whole group for dinner an hour later, Ro was quick to point out, smiling I must say, that HER hut didn't have hot water, and that she'd had a cold shower...
06 - Intricate Tihuanaco wall with faces in relief
I couldn't tell whether she was upset about this, but I don't think she made much of a fuss. We all did confirm to her that we'd just taken steaming-hot showers, and in fact, the water was so hot, we'd had to add cold water. (Remember that part about me being mean and petty sometimes? :-) This was all in good fun, and she did take it that way. This time.Well, after a nice dinner (get used to soup...) with a bottle of mediocre wine, we had a wonderful night's sleep, and woke up in time to watch the sun rise behind the mountains.
After breakfast, we headed down to the lake, walking past a restored estancia that clearly belongs to someone wealthy, and reached our boat. Once again, with just one engine running, we took a bit longer than expected to reach the Isla de la Luna. The whole reason to visit it was to go see... ruins! As the boat approached the island, we could spot five or six cholitas running down the hill to reach the dock as we disembarked. They were quick to offer us all kinds of handicrafts, and did not leave us alone until we re-embarked, about one hour later. We walked up to the Inca ruins, where Piter went into another long explanation, "proving" to us that the Incas also counted 365 days a year (364, to be precise, with an extra one thrown in for good measure).
After more hassling by the cholitas, a few pictures of the ruins, and the purchase of Pringles potato chips by the dockside, we re-boarded our little-boat-that-could, and headed to the main shore.
The name of the town is not very relevant - as there really was no town. There was, however, a bus. We were introduced to Don Adolfo and his bus, along with Pancho and Ruben, who proceeded to set up lunch for us right there in the middle of a field. Don Adolfo's bus is a "custom design", smaller and less luxurious than our vehicle of a couple of days before, but, as we were to find out, equipped to handle the best and the worst of Bolivian roads.
Our outdoor lunch was great, with all of us, except Judy, huddled around the table. She, for some reason, chose to go sit about fifteen feet away, by herself. Hum. The rest of us laughed as we fed an enterprising stray dog, who politely walked over and stared at us, without begging or making a sound, until we fed him so much, we could see his stomach expand. The climax came when Tully, wanting to make the dog jump for a dessert crepe, counted to 3, expecting the dog to leap. Instead, the dumb dog was hit by the crepe, loaded with caramel and creme, right on the face. I guess this dog had never been trained to perform for his food. Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious.
We boarded the bus, full and content, and headed back to Hotel Rosario in La Paz for the night.
After a quick jaunt into Calle Santa Cruz (which has since become my favourite) for a pre-dinner drink, Catrina and I met Kate and Marcus for dinner at a nearby restaurant. Quite good!
A good start to the adventure - though the cracks would start to show soon enough...
Comments
Hi
La paz, trekking and Bolivia seem a thousand years away already. Thanks for the update - enjoyed reading co- trekkers profiles......cheers