Copa, Copacabana, the hottest spot north of Havana....

Some colourful dancers
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Copacabana is a small seaside town on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the worlds highest navigable lake at 3812m above sea level. Copacabana is also one of the gateways to Bolivia and therefore a tourist trap and part of the Gringo trail through South America.

Our Journey from Arequipa to Copacabana in Bolivia took us through Puno a large port on the Peruvian side of the huge Lake Titicaca. There we had to change on to another bus to travel on and over the border in to Bolivia, we arrived with just 30 mins to spare, not bad timing we thought!! The next leg of the journey took us around the lake, which is the most perfect azure blue and crystal clear, to the border post. There we had to disembark the bus walk, over the boarder, get our passports stamped and then get into a very old and beaten up colectivo to take us on to Copacabana......we had arrived in Bolivia!!

.......hire a pedalo and peddle out into the lake!!!

Colourful Costumes
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After finding a nice hostel with great views over the lake we headed out to get some food. In Copacabana the local favorite is Trucha (trout) which they fish from the lake so we decided to try it out, it was fantastic and washed down with a nice glass of red it was the perfect meal!!

The next day we booked ourselves on to the first boat to Isla Del Sol on Lake Titicaca, the fabled birthplace of the Incas. After some sound advice from Katie´s Mum back in Sheffield we wrapped up warm and boy did we need it!! Although the sun was shining and out of the wind it was a really hot day, once we were on the lake the temperature dropped and with the icy breeze it was freezing on the top deck of our boat! To make matters worse the boat was travelling at a snails pace, probably due to huge numbers of tourists it managed to pack on......not sure health and safety count in Bolivia!

Dancing..
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The Island itself is very pretty and even though we didn´t have long to look around we did manage to see some old Inca terraces. These terraces have been restored to their former Inca glory and they have been growing traditional Inca crops, herbs and medicinal plants. We also walked to an old Inca temple which over the Inca generations had been added to with new built on the old, some of which dates back to 15th century AD.

That evening we enjoyed another great meal of trucha accompanied by a local playing his guitar and singing, very romantic!

Copacabana Sunset from our window
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The next day, in the afternoon, we were heading off to La Paz, the worlds highest city at 3600m asl, but we had the morning to enjoy the sun on the shores of the lake. So what did we do? Well what you would do in any self respecting seaside town.......hire a pedalo and peddle out into the lake!!! We had a fab 30 mins of fun seeing how far we could get from shore (not that far as it happens) and managed to bring our vessel safely back to shore!

We kept seeing all these cars with flowers all over them but couldn´t understand why, on our way out of Copacabana to La Paz we saw from our bus a church with a whole load of cars parked outside covered in flowers. We didn´t make the connection until a few days later when our friend Olga in La Paz told us that there was a church in Copacabana that blesses new cars! Apparently no self respecting car owner would drive a new car around without visiting Copacabana first!