Checked out of the hostel and had some breakfast in town. Had a couple of hours to kill before getting the bus so had a wander along the shore of the lake. Lots of garbage but it’s quite pretty along the shoreline.

Bus trip was about 4 hours broken by a ferry trip across part of the lake. The passengers all went in little motor boats but the bus was put on a tiny barge which looked worryingly top heavy.
It got to the other side without capsizing though and we continued our journey.
Leaving Copacabana we had travelled over some high mountains but now we were back on the flat Altiplano which continued with incredible snow topped mountains in the not so far distance until we reached the outlying suburbs of La Paz.
La Paz itself is down off the Altiplano so it was quite spectacular when the road suddenly plunged down the side of a previously unseen valley to reveal the city below.

We stayed a couple of nights in Laz Paz. We both were feeling a little sick (I think our breakfast juice in Copacabana might have been mixed with tap-water) so didn’t see much of the city yet. We were staying near the “Witches Market” which was a street with stalls selling all kinds of herbal remedies and potions and trinkets including dried Llama fetuses which are supposedly good luck.
There are also many Guitar shops and we bought one for Sarah as she has been missing playing. (It’s her Birthday on the 18th) It’s a little smaller than full sized and weighs almost nothing so shouldn’t be too inconvenient to carry.

Another early rise and we headed off across the island. The return boat was at 1.30pm and we had an 8 kilometre walk to the north end of the island and then return to the village of Cha’llapampa for the boat.
A kilometre along the path we came to another ticket booth and a man tried to sell us two tickets each. One for visiting the Temple of The Sun ruins (10Bs) which we were planning to walk to and another (5Bs) which I think was for the north part of the island but was covered by the ruin ticket anyway. I think he was just trying to rip us off so we paid for the ruin tickets and were on our way.
The walk was quite easy for the most part but had a few steep bits up hills. We were attacked by some kind of Plover at one stage.
After a couple of hours we reached the northern end of the island and explored the Chincana ruins which were quite interesting. Lots of little rooms and tunnels running between them.
Nearby was Titicaca Rock/Rock of the Puma which according to Inca mythology is the birthplace of the Sun God Viracocha and the first Incas Manco Capac and Mama Huaca. I expected the rock to be carved or something but it was simply a small overhang. On the walk back to Ch’allapamapa we stopped at the ‘ruins’ of The Temple of the Sun which was a nice high peak with views of the sunrise and sunset over the lake but no ruins! Not sure what happened there, they are marked on all the maps and they don’t mention that there is no actual ruins to see. The Spanish were pretty keen on destroying any kind of sun-worshiping temples as being blasphemous so they might have had a go at this one.
We arrived at Ch’allapampa with a couple of hours to kill before the boat left. The town was not as nice as Yumani as it was at lake level, built on and around an isthmus and was very sandy and hot. The beaches were not that clean with weed and pigs all over although the water did look inviting. A few backpackers were sunbaking in bikinis while waiting for the boat. We had some lunch and enquired about boat tickets. There were two boats leaving at 1.30pm and both would be stopping at the south end for an hour before returning to Copacabana via the crappy fake floating islands at 5pm! We didn’t fancy taking that long to get back and sitting around doing nothing for an extra hour on the boat. Luckily we found another boat operator who was charging the same fee (20Bs) for a direct trip which would only take 2 hours. We got back to Copacabana at 3.40pm feeling quite tired but happy with our achievement having walked 13km yesterday and another 12 today. On the way back to our hostel we stopped at a ticket agent and picked up bus tickets for Las Paz leaving 1.30pm tomorrow.
We gave Copacabana Coffee House another chance that evening ordering a couple of hot chocolates. They had strange names on the menu and I did check with the waitress that they were chocolat calientes (hot chocolate) before I ordered but mine turned up as an Iced Chocolate with mostly chocolate icecream and Sarah’s was a luke-warm chocolate drink made with what tasted like cooking chocolate. Such a shame because the first coffee we got there was quite good.

We were happy to not have to set the alarm clock so woke up quite a bit later than planned at 11am. Guess we will be staying a second night at this hostel!
Had a walk around town and got some breakfast and a Coffee at Copacabana Coffee House. Great Coffee but lousy service. We asked what time they opened (7am) so we could come back early the next morning.
There is a prominent hill on the north side of town which has a great view from the top so we went for a climb. The hill is only 166 metres high but when the town is at 3800m it still takes a while to slowly gasp your way to the top!
The views were fantastic. We were overlooking the whole town and across Titicaca lake and had a good view of Isla Del Sol where we are planning to go tomorrow.
Going up the hill we passed lots of large crosses and the top of the hill is covered in little shrines where people can make offerings and further along the hill is a large number of stalls selling minature vehicles, cars, houses and money which you can purchase to take a little way down the hill with the beer, flower petals, confetti etc you purchased from the other stalls to pray that these items will come to you in the following year. We bought 1 Million Dollars! In a little case for Sarah’s brother Beau who collects notes from around the world. I wanted to go and bless it with the beer spraying pilgrims but Sarah wouldn’t let me. Sorry Beau.


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