From La Paz we went to beautiful, relaxed, sunkissed, beachy Copacabana - and we didn't even have to take a flight or learn Portuguese. We didn't go to That Copacabana. We went to the small, charming Bolivian lakeside town of the same name that is nestled between two hills on a peninsula in Lago Titicaca, the biggest high altitude lake in the world.
The trip from La Paz to Copa (as it is affectionately called by the locals) takes three hours and includes a time consuming little boat-ride since no bridge exists that would connect the roads on either side of the clear blue waters of the Titicaca. This is causing much frustration and just before we wanted to go, the road from La Paz to Copa was closed down for more than 2 weeks due to demonstrations for the building of the much needed bridge. Lucky enough we were among the first who could reach Copa – perfect timing!
Copa is very small and other than a couple of quite Plazas, markets and very tourist ready streets filled with bars and restaurants the town itself doesn't have much to offer. It is its lakeside position that makes it so popular with tourists. The clear, icy waters of huge Lago Titicaca glitter in the blinding sunlight, gently slopedhills with fields of Inca grains come down to the shores and in the distance snow-capped mountains are the icing on the cake of the picture-perfect sight. At the end of our first day we had a beautiful sunset over the lake and distant islands that we enjoyed on the water, outside the harbor, on a pedal boat - steering that old thing back into the harbor after nightfall was yet another adventure.
From Copacabana we took a (very slow) boat to the Isla del Sol – the birthplace of the sun in Inca mythology and home to a couple of ancient Inca temples and the magnetic sacred rock, the Rock of the Puma. We landed on the northern part of the Island, in the tiny village of Cha'llapampa, from where we took a guided tour to the rock and the Chincana Ruins. From there we took the walking track across the mountaintops to the southern pueblo of Yumani that offers stunning vistas at every new corner. The way is only 8 km long but the altitude (4000+ m above sea level are no joke) and the burning sun took their toll and we reached our destination quite tired and just in time to take the boat back to Copa. On the way we stopped at another Inca temple, the beautiful but small Pilko Kaina, before we made our slow way back to town.
We left the beautiful country of Bolivia and its welcoming people the next morning to go to the big brother in the north – Peru. Our destination was Puno, a small, not very pretty but quite popular town, thanks to its port that connects the mainland with the famous floating islands of the Uros people.
When we arrived at the islas flotantes by boat, the colorful Uros-women welcomed us with songs in different languages and the chief of the island gave us a presentation of how his people build their islands (and everything else they need) from totora reeds.
Then we were shipped off to the main island on a traditional reed-boat – together with an approximate 1 million other visitors in more traditional reed-boats. We got a stamp in our passports and then went back on the motorboat to leave the Uros behind. One of the most shockingly touristic and commercialized places we have been to so far!
From the Uros we went further out on the lake to the (natural) Isla Amantani – a beautiful and calm place that, inspite of the many tourists that without doubt come here as well, kept its traditional and authentic feel. The island is made up of two steep hills and we had to undertake the first part of the climb just to get to the house of our hostfamily for the night. The family (Beatrice, her two younger brothers and her mother) lives in an idyllic, very basic house up on the slopes that overlooks the flowery gardens, fields and the lake with the panoramic mountaintops of Bolivia in the far distance. The fresh air is filled with songs of birds and the occasional donkey-cry and you can sit on a small porch and enjoy the warm sun on your face. A small paradise –if only for a moment.
Once the sun goes down or is blocked by a cloud it gets very cold and of course there are no heaters. Only very basic medical facilities can be found on the island – the next doctor and a hospital are in Puno, 4 hours away by boat. Most of the houses (including Beatrice's) don't have showers or running water. And the people are very poor, sharing a few rooms with the whole family, not having any furniture for themselves and mostly relying on the food they get from their own gardens. We only spend 24 hours on the island, so all the hardship didn't really become apparent to us – for us it was just a paradise.
One in which we were warmly welcomed. Beatrice was a great host with a constant big smile on her face, who offered very tasty food prepared by her mother, gave great advice for the choice of dress for the traditional fiesta that night and shared with us her way of life for one day. We visited the temple of the Pacha Mama, the god mother earth, for sunset, had a great party with traditional music, dance and dress at night and rose early the next morning to see Beatrice's brothers to school before we had to leave Amantani after too short a time.
The last island we visited was Isla Taquile, whose inhabitants are famous for their long tradition of weaving. The men wear (in our eyes quite comical) colorful woolen hats that they knit themselves to show their social status while women wear special multilayered skirts and beautifully embroidered blouses to indicate theirs. We visited the islands main plaza, the handicraft center and took a walk along old Inka-terraces before we enjoyed the famous Lago Titicaca trout for lunch. A steep walk down the hill lead us back to the port and we left to go back to Puno.
The islands of Titicaca are all singularly beautiful and the people we met were friendly and welcoming – but the impact of the many tourist (including us, of course) cannot be denied. We sure hope the indigenous islanders won't lose their ways in this industrialization and can continue their traditions and customs in the future.
The trip from La Paz to Copa (as it is affectionately called by the locals) takes three hours and includes a time consuming little boat-ride since no bridge exists that would connect the roads on either side of the clear blue waters of the Titicaca. This is causing much frustration and just before we wanted to go, the road from La Paz to Copa was closed down for more than 2 weeks due to demonstrations for the building of the much needed bridge. Lucky enough we were among the first who could reach Copa – perfect timing!Copa is very small and other than a couple of quite Plazas, markets and very tourist ready streets filled with bars and restaurants the town itself doesn't have much to offer. It is its lakeside position that makes it so popular with tourists. The clear, icy waters of huge Lago Titicaca glitter in the blinding sunlight, gently slopedhills with fields of Inca grains come down to the shores and in the distance snow-capped mountains are the icing on the cake of the picture-perfect sight. At the end of our first day we had a beautiful sunset over the lake and distant islands that we enjoyed on the water, outside the harbor, on a pedal boat - steering that old thing back into the harbor after nightfall was yet another adventure.
From Copacabana we took a (very slow) boat to the Isla del Sol – the birthplace of the sun in Inca mythology and home to a couple of ancient Inca temples and the magnetic sacred rock, the Rock of the Puma. We landed on the northern part of the Island, in the tiny village of Cha'llapampa, from where we took a guided tour to the rock and the Chincana Ruins. From there we took the walking track across the mountaintops to the southern pueblo of Yumani that offers stunning vistas at every new corner. The way is only 8 km long but the altitude (4000+ m above sea level are no joke) and the burning sun took their toll and we reached our destination quite tired and just in time to take the boat back to Copa. On the way we stopped at another Inca temple, the beautiful but small Pilko Kaina, before we made our slow way back to town.
We left the beautiful country of Bolivia and its welcoming people the next morning to go to the big brother in the north – Peru. Our destination was Puno, a small, not very pretty but quite popular town, thanks to its port that connects the mainland with the famous floating islands of the Uros people.When we arrived at the islas flotantes by boat, the colorful Uros-women welcomed us with songs in different languages and the chief of the island gave us a presentation of how his people build their islands (and everything else they need) from totora reeds.
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| Beatrice's house |
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| Beatrice and her tourist family |
The last island we visited was Isla Taquile, whose inhabitants are famous for their long tradition of weaving. The men wear (in our eyes quite comical) colorful woolen hats that they knit themselves to show their social status while women wear special multilayered skirts and beautifully embroidered blouses to indicate theirs. We visited the islands main plaza, the handicraft center and took a walk along old Inka-terraces before we enjoyed the famous Lago Titicaca trout for lunch. A steep walk down the hill lead us back to the port and we left to go back to Puno.The islands of Titicaca are all singularly beautiful and the people we met were friendly and welcoming – but the impact of the many tourist (including us, of course) cannot be denied. We sure hope the indigenous islanders won't lose their ways in this industrialization and can continue their traditions and customs in the future.
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