Day 51 - Copacabana

So, today I had the first proper fearful bus journey of the trip. We were attempting a border crossing, something that EVERYONE says is horrendous. Reports of fake police men, stolen bags, threatening money changers and forced bribery to the border crossing guards. BUT, we survived. With little to report. They stamped our passports out of Peru and into Bolivia, nobody hassled us, and we moved on. And ended up 5 minutes later in the beautiful town of Copacabana.


(this is the bolivian border - scary, right?)

Copa is cute. On the bolivian border and on the shores of Lake Titicaca, its stunning. And dirt cheap. Overlooked by a huge hill, you can ride pedalos around the lake (we did), climb the hill for amazing sunsets (I did), and buy original jewellery made by the locals for less than a quid (everyone else did). Its charming, and despite staying in a hostel with some peruvian theives, we had a great couple of days.





The people here are wicked too. Its a proper lazy town, until 10:30am and 2pm when they start throwing flowers on cars, dousing them with alcohol in honour of the earth god Pachamama, and shooting guns into the air. Right outside this amazing cathedral. At 1am, stumbling home from a bar, we would still see little old bolivian women brushing the flowers up off the courtyard. Its proper cute.





Dan and I decided to do a day trek from copacabana to the Isla Del Sol, the birthplace of Inca mythology. It sounded tough - 6 hours of walking, with vague directions along the coast, then hitch a ride in a row boat back to the other island. We headed off late at 12ish, crossing streams, scrambling up hills, passing 90-year-old bolivian women carrying a bag twice the size of my backpack, and ended up 4 hours later about half way in the middle of a tiny village (5 houses). Some little old man ran up to us, asking if we wanted to be rowed to the island for 30 bolivianos. The journey would be an hour and half each way. For 2 quid. We hopped into his boat, and he rowed. and rowed. almost 2 hours later, after a quick nap and the most beautiful scenery I've seen for a long time, he moored up aginst some rocks and we climbed aboard the island.



No idea where to go, dan and I employed some 10 year old boy to guide us across the island to the village, where we bumped into all the others who were waiting for us to arrive. It was a proper off-the-beaten-track adventure, spiced with chatting to random villagers and getting a 2 hour row boat ride for a quid each. amazing.



The next day, we left sam and suzi (who both "don't hike") to head back to copa, while the rest of us dashed across the island during the day. Its beautiful, and you can properly see why the inca's believed that their gods began here. It has a presence like no other island. We walked for about 4 hours, then hired another dude to row us to a beach, where we hired ANOTHER dude to motor boat us back to copa. He was drunk, and for 2 hours another guy on the boat harrassed some poor bolivian woman. But we got off safe, and after a good night's sleep, decided to head off to the capital of Bolivia - La Paz.