La Paz

After Uyuni we head straight for La Paz, which involves another hilarious bus journey that I won´t go into in too much detail. Suffice to say that it doesn´t really matter how fancy a bus you have if you don´t have paved roads to drive on.

La Paz is an incredible looking city – it´s built on and surrounded by mountains. It feels as if we are always walking uphill or downhill. We stay in one of our more unusual accomodations here – a hotel on the top floors of a shopping centre. Just down the road from us is the Witches Market, where you can buy llama foetuses. We had no real need for one at the time so we left them alone. It´s probably good to know for future reference though.

On our first day exploring the city we decide to go for a walk down the main street and visit some travel agencies to arrange the next part of our trip. Along the way we see a small protest in the main square – there is chanting and some fireworks, but it doesn´t seem like something we have to worry about. Further along the way we pass a large group of riot police. Along with large shields, helmets with face masks and truncheons they have really big guns. Some have what look like grenade launchers, but we hope that they are for tear gas. This does seem like something to worry about so we hurry on our way down the main street.  As we are walking we start to hear loud bangs coming from the direction we came. We decide at this point that it would be best to head back to the hotel and find out what´s going on. Unfortunately we cannot get a taxi home – apparently the protests are blocking our route. After a bit of toing and froing we decide to shelter in the bar of the nearby Plaza Hotel(fancy!). We get front row seats for the protest then and discover the source of the loud bangs – the miners are throwing dynamite. I´m sure it was all in good fun, but the combination of dynamite and riot police is a little worrying. We eventually make it back to our hotel after everything has passed.

The following day we head to the Museum of Musical Instruments, where they have the best signs ever : `You can touch!´. We get to bang drums, turn wheels, pull strings and tap bottles. It´s great fun, and definitely worth a visit. Unfortunately on our way home we once again get stuck in the middle of protests, and this one seems more serious. People on top of a bridge are throwing things (sticks, bangers, dynamite?) down on to protesters below. The bridge was our main route home so we once again had to wait for things to pass. It starts to get frustrating and a little worrying so we decide to leave La Paz early and head to Copacabana the next day.

Copacabana

We arrive in Copacabana a little worried – on the advice of an English couple we met in La Paz we have not booked accomodation. They mentioned that it is a quiet town, with lots of available accomodation. What they didn’t know (presumably!) and we find out on the bus there is that we are arriving on the week of a pilgrimage. During this pilgrimage accomodation is likely to book out completely. So the bus journey is a little worrying, but the spectacular sight of the sun setting on the mountains around Lake Titicaca distracts us.

On arrival in the town we walk straight into accomodation in a lovely hotel, thanks to the quick thinking of a lovely Dutch couple we meet on the way.* Huzzah!

The fact that it is a week of pilgrimage means that the town is bustling, so we decide to stay an extra night. One of the main draws is the blessing of vehicles which takes place at the church. This happens on a daily basis, but this week the streets are clogged up with cars waiting to be blessed. The cars are decorated with confetti and brightly coloured paper. The priest blesses the engine first of all (with a little prayer beforehand) and then splashes holy water all over the car (inside and out) and it’s delighted occupants. Afterwards the drivers throw more confetti and spray beer on the outside of the car.

Inside the church there is also a chapel full of candles – inside the pilgrims pray to the candles before lighting them. The walls are black but decorated with pictures made out of the molten candle wax, so all along there are white pictures of cars and houses. We don´t know if they were asking for things, or praying for their protection.

After the church we decide to climb Calvary, the hill overlooking the town. Along with offering spectacular views of Lake Titicaca it also contains the stations the cross so it is also crowded with pilgrims.  What is most interesting about this walk is the number of fortune tellers and shamans** along the way. Along with card readers there are people who tell fortunes in far more interesting ways – we see men who melt metal in gas heated pans. When the metal hardens they read the shape to tell fortunes. We also see men with caged birds – the birds sit on top of a tray of folded cards which is pulled out when someone requests their fortune. With a little prodding from their owner the bird hops out to the front of the cage and selects a card from the tray. We see one bird pick out two cards – it then has to pickbetween them. The chosen card is the customer´s fortune.

It´s fascinating to see the Catholic rights and other*** ceremonies being performed side by side, by the same people, so arriving at pilgrimage time was really good luck.

Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca was the reason we had gone to Copacabana, so it probably deserves a few words. It´s so huge that it looks like an ocean, and it is surrounded by spectacular mountains. From Copacabana we visit Isla del Sol, an island where the first Inca was supposedly born. It has a number of Inca ruins, including a spectacular staircase surrounded with greenery. After visiting Isla del Sol, we hop on a bus**** to Puno in Peru to visit more islands. We spend a morning visiting the floating islands of the Uros people, which are spectacular. The people build the islands themselves, out of reeds. They also use the reeds to build their houses & boats. Their primary income used to come from fishing, but it seems as if tourism has taken over now and we are given a warm welcome with traditional food, traditional singing (mostly, twinkle twinkle may not actually be a traditional Uros song!) & a market.

* Everyone on the bus, aside from us and the driver, was Dutch. They had booked a private bus, but the company that provided the bus realised there were free seats remaining so sold us tickets for it without telling either party. On a previous bus journey the Dutch party had discovered that the driver was smuggling a group of Bolivians under the bus in the luggage compartment. Given that the bus journeys are uncomfortable in the seats this must have been horrific.

** This is definitely the wrong word, but I don´t know a better one.

*** I´m guessing that´s what it´s called at census time

**** It´s really exciting to wake up in the morning and know you´re getting on a bus to Peru!