Bolivia! Woke up
at sunrise to see the beautiful sight. The sun rising over the town,
donkeys, sheep and pigs roaming around by the lakefront. I took a
walk around the town for about an hour or so, getting amazing
pictures, and just enjoying the beauty around me, then went back to
the room to meet the others.
We got a nice
breakfast of bread, eggs, and tea and we went down to get our boat
tickets taken care of and see some ruins on the island. We got to the
ruins tax area and we didn't have enough Bolivianos on us, Branwen
had forgotten her wallet, and the rest of us were seriously low. The
woman would not take dollars or soles, so we changed our plans from
hiking and seeing ruins to lying on the beach of Lake Titicaca and
getting some sun. Mark and Alex went for a dip, Branwen and I just
got our feet wet. It was freezing. Glad I didn't jump in. We took in
some sun, watched some hippies do hippy stuff like swimming topless,
camping on the beach, playing flute, guitar, etc. Skipped some stones
for awhile, then went back to our room to get our bags and board the
boat. Unlike earlier, there weren't any kids trying to get more money
out of us. Nice change. We grabbed our bags, took in the last
beautiful hilltop view and headed for the boat. We had a little time,
so I bought a couple of beers, Pacena and Huari, to share between the
4 of us and a cheap little sandwich. Mine was basically a super flat
burger with an egg on it. They call it mixto. We got on the boat, I
immediately grabbed a seat up front downstairs and laid down. The
others went to the upper deck. I slept probably 3 of the 3.5 hour
ride. The other half hour I looked out the window at the scenery and
enjoyed the mom and two little kids sitting next to me. Cute,
perfectly behaved, especially for a 3.5 hour boat ride.
We got off, and
spent the next hour hanging out by the lake at the same restaurant we
were at the day before. I ordered nachos, which took a long time, and
then got basically nacho cheese Doritos with a little cheese and
meat, all stuck together, on a tiny plate, and the “guacamole”
was a sliced avocado. Oh well. I decided to take the waiter up on his
offer to sell me 2 joints, we said goodbye to Branwen and Alex, and
Mark and I found a hotel overlooking the lake for a decent price.
About Bs 160 ($23 USD). Total. It looked like a palace. Marble
everything, huge rooms, nice woodwork, balcones, hot water, nice
linens, etc!
Mark grabbed a
bottle of wine, we pushed the cork in b/c we had no corkscrew. I
drank a glass and hopped in the shower. Hot water is great. Mark
showered as well and we decided to walk around Copacabana and get a
feel for the town.
The main street
is all touristy. Restaurants, travel agencies and shops. One street
over is the “Bolivian” street, mostly street food. Up the hill,
past the bus loading area, are a couple of plazas, one with a huge
church. Pretty sure the sign on the church said “no race mixing”.
We walked on up the hill, and the streets started getting a bit
“dodgy”, so we headed back and stopped in this little bar we were
coerced into. It was a little hippy place playing world music and
decorated like a jungle. We had a beer each and met two students from
Michigan, Mike studying archeology, and Caitlin studying
anthropology. The four of us went to another place across the street
and listened to some Argentinians jam for a bit and got fairly
intoxicated on a local drink I can't remember the name of and could
barely pronounce at the time. It tasted like a margarita, but with
rum and had hand crushed ice in it. We racked up a Bs 340 bill ($48
USD) between the 4 of us, we said goodbye to our new friends, bought
a bottle of wine and went back to the room. We smoked a j and drank
the wine on the balcony and talked about how awesome the trip has
been and why so many people don't do what we're doing. Are we the
crazy ones? I don't think so. My quote of the night was,”Of you're
crazy, you don't know you are, you just are.”
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