I took an overnight bus from Potosí to La Paz where I met back up with Llew. Since we had a 3 hours before catching a bus up to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca, Llew took me on one of the cable cars that La Paz has. For 3 Bolivianos (less than 50 cents) one can take a 1 way trip. We went up the redline to the top of the hill which was over 4,000 meters. If it hadn't been cloudy I would have had good views of the volcanoes outside the city.
apartment style graves
We rode the bus for close to 5 hours and arrived in Copacabana. Its a beautiful place on lake Titicaca. We climbed up Cerro Calvario for the sunset. It was pretty nice up there although climbing it was a bit harder since we were at 3900 meters (13k feet). I imagine that I will see similar scenes when I get to the Mediterranean.
sunset over Lake Titicaca
The next day we took a boat out to Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) and spent one night in Challapampa. (It's on the north side of the island and much smaller and quieter than Yumani on the south side.) We did a hike to Chincana Ruinas and then went down to the beach from there and had a nice swim in lake Titicaca. I was surprised that it wasn't freezing cold as its almost 13k feet up. I think some of the lakes in the Sierra are much colder.
Best room for only $3.50
Pigs and Burrow like the beach ;)
Mesa Ceremonial
Ruinas Chincana
Best place to swim
Challapampa
The next day we packed our stuff and backpacked to the south side of the island which only took us 1.5 hrs. We caught a boat back to Copacabana and then a bus from there up to Puno, Peru.
Trekking over to Yumani on the south side
Sheepherdess
I was a little sad to say good-bye to Bolivia as I've enjoyed my stay in the country. It has been really nice spending a month seeing parts of it. I've enjoyed eating the good street food and I liked how everything was very cheap. I highly recommend others to see and enjoy the rich culture here.
No comments:
Post a Comment