Lago Titikaka and Copacabana

From La Paz, I took a short bus ride to Copacabana, which is not in Brazil, but a small town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titikaka. At this point I was still traveling with Dennis and we were joined by Natalie (from the 4x4 trip) and her friend Lexi. Here's a picture of the four of us:

We arrived on Sunday afternoon. We couldn´t get a room at the hostel we´d heard a lot about, so we checked into Hotel Utami for one night, bought some booze and started drinking for Lexi´s birthday. We tried to go out around 11:30, but the whole town was closed down. It was Sunday night and not prime tourist season.

The next day, we checked into a truly awesome hostel/hotel called La Cupula. For $32/night we got a 4 person room. The hostel was beautiful with great views, hammocks, and even a nice restaurant upstairs. Here's the view from the front of the hostel.

Then, we got a good lunch--I had trucha al ajo, fresh trout from the lake and it was great. It was still Lexi´s birthday, so we started drinking at lunch just before noon. Then, we rented a peddle boat and went out onto the lake for a couple of hours with a bottle of rum. Here are some pics from that little adventure:

We drank for a while more in the hostel, climbed a big hill to see sunset, showered up, went upstairs to the hostel restaurant for a few beers, and then tried to go out for dinner. Here's a pic from sunset:

We went to 4-5 restaurants at about 9pm and they were all closed or not serving food (or one had only one person doing all the cooking and serving and it would have taken hours). Mercifully, we were able to order a pizza to go, ate it on the street and headed to the popular bar, Waykay´s. It was pretty mellow, and after a shot of tequila and a few beers we headed back to the hostel.

Copacabana is not so much a party town--and operates on a slightly different schedule then, say, Buenos Aires.


La Isla del Sol

The next day, we went to La Isla del Sol, in the middle of Lago de Titikaka. This is the place the Incas say is the birthplace of the sun. We woke up early, took a 3 hour boat ride to the north side of the island, got a guided tour of some inca ruins, hiked 3 hours to the south side and then caught a boat back. Here are some pics from that adventure:

This pretty much wiped everyone out, so we had a nice dinner (trucha al diablo--spicy and good, with two suprisingly good pina coladas) and then had a mellow night back at the hostel.

The next day Dennis and I caught a bus to Cuzco, Peru.