Happy Holidays to you all! I am going to really try to write some new reviews as I have not written...
Happy Holidays to you all! I am going to really try to write some new reviews as I have not written anything for ages. New reviews please take a look not long finished. Updated my Hoi An review too if anyone would care to look again!
We crossed the border between Peru and Bolivia on land. We walked to the Peru passport office and were stamped out of Peru then walked a few yards to be stamped into Bolivia. We climbed into a local mini bus - about 7 of us squeezed into a VW kombi sort of van which took us to Copacabana, in Bolivia. Copacabana is an Aymara town of about 20,000 people. Its name means 'The overlook of the Lake' in Aymara.
It was Sunday and in Cocacabana on one Sunday in the month they have a very interesting celebration. Outside the church there were a huge number of new cars all decorated with flowers having beer or champagne shaken over them. The priest then came and blessed them one by one after which fire crackers were let off. The owners of the cars also enjoyed a bit of the alcohol and after the cars were blessed their proud owners ( with drink inside them) then drove off through the town. It was all noise and excitement with local people dressed in their national costume, the ladies in bowler hats and colourful outfits. There were stalls selling scarves and other local souvenir type items which all added to the noise, colour and atmosphere. It was a ceremony I had never heard
of or experienced anywhere else in the world and it made our wait in Copacabana all the more interesting.
In the church itself, there was the usual baroque opulence around and highly decorated altar , very few people were in the actual church itself apart from us, despite the fact that it was Sunday. At the side of the main church was the candle room where people could offer their prayers and place candles. This room was packed and the whole room was covered in wax, including the floor which was rather slippery. Otherwise the room was quite dark and not very attractive but the atmosphere was humming with prayer and emotion.
We left Copacabana and got on a hydrofoil which took us to Moon Island. On this island was an Inca temple ruins. We had to climb up rather uneven steps carved out of the hill in order to get to the temple. Ordinarily this would have been quite hard work but in the altitude we were all puffing after step 6!! Our guide picked some herb which she said was mint but smelled a little like catnip which she told us to rub between our hands and inhale. It was great; it really opened up our nasal passages and enabled us to breathe more easily and we made it up the other fifty or so steps to the temple. Lake Titicaca is a sacred place for the Inca civilization, as the Incan mythology says that the first Inca king, Manco Capac, was born here. According to the Incan mythology, this is the place where the world was created from, when the god Viracocha came out of the lake and created the sun, the stars and the first people.
At the temple ruins we wandered around and took photos, there was only a facade and then a few huge stone walls that remained but it was an interesting façade with geometric designs in the walls. The walls were very straight rather than sloping as they had been in Peru; this was because Bolivia does not suffer from earthquakes as Peru does so the buildings did not have to be earthquake resistant. There were local people selling woven items, necklaces and dolls at extremely reasonable prices. We bought a necklace based on the Inca calendar, a belt and a doll for $3.50 US which pleased me and helped them.
We returned to our hydrofoil and moved onto Sun Island where we were to enjoy our lunch. If we thought the Moon island steps were steep these were even higher, there must have been about 200 hundred steps but if we wanted our lunch then we had to get up there. Once we finally reached the top we were rewarded with a beautiful view of Lake Titicaca and a table laid with a white table cloth and with umbrellas so that we could enjoy our lunch and the view together. The lake looked so clear and sapphire blue, with the snow capped mountains in the background against a true blue sky - it is fresh and pure and everything looks cleaner with truer colours than when at lower altitudes.
Lunch was a set meal of local soup, Lake trout in breadcrumbs with local potatoes and vegetables followed by watermelon. The food was all fresh and locally produced and very efficiently delivered by local women in their traditional dress. It was not gourmet food but was authentic, plain country food which was really just what we wanted when hydro foiling across the lake.
We returned to the hydrofoil for the last trip on Lake Titicaca, about 3 hours to get to Huatajata and our hotel. On arrival at the hotel Inca Utama we were brought the usual cup of coca tea to help with the altitude while we completed the registration forms.
The rooms were clean with two single beds but very hot as they put heaters and electric blankets on. It really was not that cold as the sun was shining brightly we rushed around turning them all off and opened the window as far as it would go before enjoying a relaxing bath. The towels were a little tired but clean and there was only soap and shampoo provided. We asked at reception if they could please turn off all the heating in our room and not to put the electric blankets on. It did get colder in the night but it was not electric blanket temperatures by any means and we had the window open all night. Before going down to dinner we met our guide who was determined that we were going to visit a small museum which explained the background to Tiwaniku, the newly excavated Inca ruins that we were going to visit the next day. We were also shown a film about the Kewalla people, an indigenous people who use herbs to heal and have a sort of witch doctor as their healer. Following the film we went to another museum showing and the herbs and remedies and explaining how they are administered. There were some very interesting things such as llama foetuses and graphic pictures of injuries and how to help them heal. At the end of the museum we visited a witch doctor or shama in his dark, smoke filled room sitting in traditional dress by the fire. He chanted a spell and tossed alcohol into the fire. Our guide explained that this was to give us a safe journey home. One of our friends stayed behind afterwards to ask him a question but we did not feel we had anything we wanted to ask so I can't comment on the session following. It was a fascinating experience and a complete surprise as we were not expecting it. We ordered our dinner as we checked in so that service was actually quite efficient. I had a local lake trout which was very nice and my husband had llama steak and chips!! There were the usual drinks including wine on offer but we decided on local beer which was very refreshing. There was a local group playing traditional music which began to play towards the end of the meal which was fortunate, as although it was interesting, it was quite loud and at the end of a very long day there was a limit to the amount of loud music you can enjoy. Breakfast the next morning was organised chaos. A waiter turned up and asked if we wanted eggs, I didn't but my husband asked for scrambled eggs with bacon. I asked what else there was as there was no menu and no food out. He mentioned fruit so I asked for that. My husband got his scrambled eggs mixed with ham!! I waited some considerable time before I was given a whole peeled banana with a slice of pawpaw on a plate. We did manage to get a drink of fruit juice and a cup of coca tea. There was also a bread roll. Other people asked for eggs and received nothing but the bread roll and only two of us were lucky enough to get the peeled whole banana and slice of pawpaw!. It was all rather bizarre but it did suffice to keep us going till our next meal.
Lake Titicaca is beautiful and is one of the nominees for the New Natural 7 Wonders as i mentioned in my review on Lake Titicaca in Peru. Although it is one Lake, there are two very different countries that it belongs to and each country's part of the lake offers quite different things to see.
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Advantages: Relaxing town with plenty of accomodation/dining, stunning Islands and Lake. Disadvantages: High altitude makes exertion taxing, unremakable ruins.
Advantages: Relaxing town with plenty of accomodation/dining, stunning Islands and Lake. Disadvantages: High altitude makes exertion taxing, unremakable ruins.
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