Copacabana to La Paz

We had a very scenic and interesting bus trip from Copacabana to La Paz. All of us (bus passengers) had to get out of the bus to cross a part of Lake Titicaca on a motor boat while the bus was transported across separately on a bigger wooden boat. It was quite amusing!

Lake Titicaca was visible all along our route. It looks like the ocean. It’s so huge! We could also see many snow-capped mountains, small villages and fields.

We crossed the border from Peru to Bolivia yesterday. I was a bit nervous about this border post but everything went fine and they were satisfied with our Bolivian visas. So far we have realized that the wi-fi in Bolivia is either non existent or really, really slow. It is also not as abundantly available as in Peru so we might take longer than usual to update our blog.

We spent one night in Copacabana which is on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. (It’s just 150km from Puno but it was a 3 hour bus ride with a 1 hour stop-over at the border.) Copacabana looks like a little, rustic town full of hippies. Frank, a South African staying at our hotel said it felt like he had been blasted back to the 70’s.

Marc and I walked around the town a bit and had something small to eat at a few restaurants. They all seemed to have a “free-spirited theme” and were very rustic. They are also big on their vegetarian meals and lemon pies. We tried a lemon pie, it tasted like a slice of lemon meringue. Yum! We tried a local beer called Judas. It has 7% alcohol which is quite strong for a beer. It doesn’t taste too bad.

Utama Hotel was the name of the place we stayed at. They offer free water, coca tea, sweets and bananas all day which is a nice gesture. I thought the internet at the hotel was slow because the 75 year old hotel owner was watching You Tube videos, but the internet is really slow here in La Paz too.

After one night in the town we felt all Copacobanad-out so we booked a bus ticket to La Paz at our hotel.

This morning we walked to the top of the sacred hill over looking Lake Titicaca and Copacabana. The wind at the top was freezing but the view was stunning.

We are now in La Paz. It’s the highest capital city in the world. There are tons of people and a million crazy taxis and huge busses. Such big cities are generally not our scene but there is a lot to do from here…