It’s Sunday and tomorrow we’ll be leaving La Paz bound for the highest lake in the world, Lake Titicaca and the town of Copacabana. We’ve got one afternoon spare so we take in the city sights by riding the cable car around the city.
Returning to Rendezvous Hotel we discover that the restaurant and reception is closed. This is a problem for us as we still need to pay for our accommodation . Elena searches through the emails and quickly sends a message to Zack the owner. He’s away for the day but sends one of the staff to collect payment, he also organises a taxi for the morning and says he’ll sort breakfast for us as well be leaving before the restaurant opens tomorrow morning.
I set the alarm for 6.30 instead of 6am, just as well I woke early. The showers are hot and I race through encouraging Elena to get up and get a move on. Wandering down to the common lounge and kitchen we’re surprised by the spread that Zack has left for us. These guys really do know how to treat people special. We tuck in and the 20 minutes races by. I check the phone for the time OMG it’s 6.43am the taxi will be waiting.
Now it’s a blinding race to stuff the last items in the packs and leave, no lasting glimpses and sighs. In a moment we’re gone. Now battling the early morning traffic our poor taxi isn’t exactly sure where he’s going. Thank goodness I bought a copy of the map Zack gave us days before. These taxi drivers in La Paz don’t have GPS, I guess they assume you know where you’re going.
We’re dropped at Adventure Brew, a small hostel where we’ll be picked up by the Bolivia Hop bus. This bus system is a hop on hop off service that runs through northern Bolivia and partners with Peru Hop buses. We’ll be using this bus system from now until we reach Lima in two weeks time.
Alejandro, our guide gives us a hand with the luggage and how the bus works. We’ll be stopping in about 30 minutes at a petrol station, this will be our last stop until we reach the lake. It a time to stock up on snacks. There’s a mother dog and one of her puppies at the station and everyone wants a hold, I’m still amazed at the tolerance of Bolivian people toward stray dogs and dogs in general. The journey from La Paz to Copacabana is 4 hours and the time goes by quickly. There is one more stop as we have to get off the bus and cross a section of the lake. It’s here that passports are checked and you have 10 minutes as the bus is placed on a barge and bought across the lake.
The road from this point to Copacabana is 45 minutes Alejandro tells us. The road climbs away from the lake and gives way to stunning scenery. I wish I had my motorbike now, this road is beautiful is every direction. It would be a bikers paradise.
The lake is massive Lake Titicaca, at an elevation of 12,507 feet (3,812 meters) in the Andean Altiplano, is the highest large lake in the world. More than 120 miles long and 50 miles wide, it was the centre of the Incan civilization, and today straddles the boundary between Peru and Bolivia.
Our bus pulls up and as we now have an excursion Elena booked months ago, we are free to find our hotel and be back at 1pm for our next tour.
We’re a day early and hope that this ever popular hotel has a room available. We’re told that they’re fully booked and to come back after the tour any they’ll try to help us find a place to stay for the one night. We decide to leave out bags with the hotel as it’ll save us dragging them needlessly on our afternoon tour.
Isla del Sol is an island in the southern part of Lake Titicaca. It is part of the modern State of Bolivia and is part of the La Paz Department. Geographically, the terrain is harsh; it is a rocky, hilly island with many eucalyptus trees.
It’s from here that the ancient Andean civilisations were born. Some of the artifacts date back more that 6000BC. It’s an incredible island is you can stay here. Our advice, don’t take the afternoon tour, it’s too rushed and you’ll find yourself out of breath and struggling to complete the walk in time. For us it was walk, shoot a picture and not much time for anything else. The boat leaked and it wasn’t the fastest trip across the water, but we did enjoy it.
Returning to our hotel we’re in luck as a room has become available. It’s quirky with its door opening through the roof to reveal a roof top balcony and magnificent views across the bay.
Night descends fast and so does the temperature. We needed dinner, so a quick stroll back down the steep hill to the centre of town revealed a great selection of restaurants with touts out front selling their specials. We’re hungry and wandered into the first one we saw for a set menu of Soup, Spaghetti and a fruit desert.
Now full and with bottled water purchased (strange huge lake of water but the advice is to buy bottled water) we now staggered up the very steep road back to our hotel. As there isn’t a TV in our room we make for the communal lounge to find a fire roaring and “Trixie” a little marmalade cat curled up on the sofa. I through on a DVD of Robyn Hood and we sit back. A few other travellers settle in and tune out to the movie. Trixie’s now taken to sitting on me so I stay until the end of the movie while Elena turns in early.
