Copacabana

Copacabana, Bolivia

First of all, sorry for being so behind with the blogs. The internet out here is, how should I put it... terrible.

In the early morning, we had to take the bus to Copacabana. Luckily, we didn't drink too much alcohol on New Year's Eve. We left the city and saw the last few survivors of the New Year's night on the street and then headed towards La Paz via El Alto. After a while, we caught our first glimpse of Lake Titicaca. What a beautiful view.

We had to cross the lake somehow, so the bus was loaded onto an old, rundown raft.

It didn't look like it was going to work, but we were able to cross to the other side with a small boat. We didn't mind.

After 4 hours of beautiful Bolivian highlands, we arrived in Copacabana. It's like a holiday resort for Bolivians. It has a sandy beach (very dirty) and on the lakeshore, there are jet skis, pedal boats, banana boats with people pulling them, stand-up paddleboards, and these inflatable balls where you can stand in and run like a hamster. They all drive as fast and as close to each other as possible, it's chaos on the lakeshore, but very entertaining.

We carried our luggage up the hill to our hostel. When we checked in, the receptionist said, "Ah yes, you have our suite for one night!" We both looked at each other and said, "Suite?" I had mixed feelings, partly excitement, but also fear that the suite would cost around 200 francs. However, it only cost 22 francs and it was amazing. We had the best view of Copacabana, a huge shower, a fireplace, and a great restaurant. It was all built in a Greek style.

We had a nice dinner and then went back to the accommodation. It's quite cold at 3800 meters, so we lit the fireplace.

The next morning, we had to leave early, but we got some unexpected visitors and everything took twice as long.

We picked up our backpacks at the bus company that would take us to Puno later, and then got on the boat. We took a day trip to the largest island on the Bolivian side, Isla de la Luna and Isla del Sol.

The boat was rocking and I quickly wondered if they were joking. The boat was going just a little faster than walking speed. Luckily, it was very narrow, so we had to sit close together on a small bench. Oh, and the person next to me tried their best to improve the off-key singing but it didn't work. After a long 2 hours, we arrived at the first island. It had some ruins and we climbed to the top of the island. The view was amazing.

The island itself was quite touristy. We got back on the boat and continued, but after 2 minutes, we realized that one of the two motors had been forgotten to be refueled, so we were now going slower with only one motor to the other island. Everyone was passing by and waving at us. Because of the single engine, we had quite a bit of waves. People started to vomit, it was great. But eventually, we arrived. Isla del Sol is huge, but we only had 2 hours there. So, we didn't have time to explore much and the harbor was full of tourists. We had some food and then headed back to Copacabana. But first, we had to wait for the captain, who preferred to sleep for 2 hours and found it more important to play on his phone. Suddenly, he became nervous and drove from boat to boat to find fuel. After this endless boat ride, we finally arrived in Copacabana. The trip was finally over. I found it a bit of a joke. It had a few nice places, but overall, it was quite boring with that stupid boat. But it only cost 4 francs, so...

We took a 4-hour bus ride to Puno, where we met Muriel's parents. We will be traveling with them through Peru for the next 2 and a half weeks. The customs process was, once again, extremely annoying. We had to wait for over an hour to get the stamps, and to make matters worse, we had to make copies of our own passports for 1 franc. Anyway, we arrived and went straight to the hotel. We met Andrea and Reto and had some food while telling stories. More about Puno in the next blog.

See you soon,

Ernesto & Muriel