Lake Titicaca

For the weekend, we all decided as a group to go to Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world. We arranged a private 2-day tour for the 14 of us where everything would be taken care of. The best idea in the world. We left La Paz at 7am, picked up some other travelers from hostels, found a new market to explore in la plaza juariste equino, which Adriana wrote down so we could come back to it, and watched the city wake up on a winter Saturday morning through the windows of the bus. We passed through El Alto, the city sitting atop a hill above La Paz, and which has slowly been encompassed into La Paz as a neighborhood. As we drove up the mountains, side streets turned to unpaved dirt roads and the number of indigenous women in traditional dress increased. We got to drive through the markets of El Alto, where they sold everything from fruit and juice to shoelaces and mobile phones. It was strange seeing colorful banners advertising a phone company next to unfinished brick houses and the layer of dust and sand that hovered on everything. None of the buildings were finished. Later on, we found out it is because Bolivians aren’t required to pay taxes on housing until its finished, so people never finish building them, having an open 3rd floor with no roof, or never painting the outside of the house. Once we left the city, the landscape turned into farmland and mountains in the background. There were many donkeys around and small, seemingly insignificant farm houses dotted the plains. In order to get to Copacabana, we had to travel up mountains on curvatious roads. Then, we encountered a river. To get across, we all exited the bus and bought tickets for a small motor boat to take us across the river while the bus took its own private boat across the river as well. We met up with the bus on the other side. When we asked how many boats are underneath the water in the river, he mentioned some number around 20 and mumbled about how that is why they take people across the river in different boats. It’s definitely a sight to see. After the river crossing, we rode the bus for another hour until we were in the middle of Copacabana, the city. We took a tour of their white-washed sparkling church, walked along the markets and the popcorn street (popcorn is HUGE here, literally, and sold in large bags) and then finally took a side street to a fancy hotel restaurant with a beautiful view of the lake. Here, we had trucha (the fish they catch in lake Titicaca – it was brought over by the Spaniards) and tried Bolivian white wine. Yup, Bolivia has its own wine and its quite delicious. It reminded me of Kim Crawford wine from New Zealand – it had an unripe tomato aftertaste. Después, we went down to the shore and caught a ferry to the Isla del Sol (Island of the sun), which is a large, mountainous island on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca with lots of Tiwanaku and Inca ruins. It about another hour to get to the island but the view of the lake and islands on the way was incredible. When we arrived, we began our 2 hour trek uphill to our hostel. There were a lot of steep stairs and we all complained, but when we finally reached the top, where the hostel was located, we all shut up. It was a beautiful stone building of 3 stories with a large balcony on the 2nd and 3rd floor that looked out on the lake, the mountains, and the terraces beneath. We were all given coca tea, I shared my bar of chocolate, and we all just hung out, mesmorized by the view. After dropping off our things, we climbed another 30 minutes to a spot to watch the sunset and I met an Argentinian couple who found my hat after I dropped it, who are planning on doing a North America roadtrip with 3 kids. That night, we fell asleep early, squished into the bed by 3 heavy blankets on top. At least I wasn’t cold.