Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Donna & Neils Travels
The bus journey to Copacabana was pretty interesting enough. At one point we had to get off the bus and get on a boat to cross a narrow channel of water. The bus then got on a really dodgy looking boat and then went across seperately. There were times you thought that the boat carrying the bus was going to capsize and all our luggage would be plummeting to the bottom of Lake Titikaca but it managed to get across and we all jumped on board and carried on safely to Copacabana. The hostal was brilliant, it was high on a hill looking down on the bay, although a bit chilly at night it was a great place to stay. The owner was a Dutch guy who was really helpful, and like all dutch people could speak 15 billion languages. The town itself wasn't that great, it had a beautiful Cathederal but that was about it. Most of the town was full of a mixture of indiginous people and backpacking Gringo's.
Here we were going to visit the Isla del Sol on Lake Titikaca, which is supposed to be pretty beautiful and with a lot of Inca ruins. We booked the boat for the next day and then decided to go fo a walk outside the town along the bank of Lake Titikaca. This was great, you went through some really cool indiginus villages and we were the only ones walking so it didn't seem touristy at all. All the villagers were out working the fields or going about their daily business, all of them smiled and said 'hola', really friendly people. There were pigs roaming the streets and wild dogs barking, which makes one a bit uneasy at first but as long as you didn't stare at them of get too near they were ok, just barked a lot.
One thing I haven't mentioned is that we had noticed, as we had been travelling our way through Bolivia is that you could see that it was a very poor country and out in the sticks, and even in the big cities to some extent, the women all dressed in traditional clothes, it wasn't put on for the tourist. One popular part of the dress was bowler hats, they all seemed to wear them. One thing I noticed as well that they must not wear knickers, because as we were walking along this particular day there were 2 women in front of us and suddenly one just squatted down, had a piss, and then cool as you like got up and carried on talking to her mate. You don't see that in England, ok maybe in Newcastle and the North East, but they don't know any better.
Anyway, after being out all day in the Sun we got back to the hostal and had a shower. One thing I had forgot though was that When we were in La Paz I went to the barbers and had a number 2 (no, I didn't s*** on his floor, number 2 haircut). This was pretty funny, well not for me but Donna found it amusing. We were actually walking along the street in La Paz when a woman popped her head out of a shop door and said, 'haircut', how bizzarre, as I wanted one anyway. So, went inside and it turned out to be a barbers, now this is where it turned a bit strange. I said that I wanted a number 2 and the woman then sat me down and everone looked and stared, even the male barbers, and then they all started to laugh. Well, she got the clippers and it was if it was the first time she had seen them, turning them upside down and pushing switches to see what made it work. By this time, even the customers were smirking and the one sitting next to Donna showed her a picture of a bald Ronaldo and pointed to me and laughed. Well, what can you do, I'd just done the most dangerous road in the world so couldn't really back out of a haircut. It actually turned out fine but was sure it was her first time as she wasn't the most confident of barbers. Anyway, back to Copacabana, I had forgot that I had just had my head shaved and had been out all day in th esun without a hat. Needless to say, that night I got sunstroke and was really ill all night and in the morning we couldn't go to Isla del Sol. We thought about doing it the day after but we had booked our coach to Puno for the next day and also the train from Puno to Cusco, se we were on a pretty strict timeline. Therefore, we didn't see Isla del Sol, all because of 'me bald éad'.
Even though we didn't see Isla del Sol really enjoyed the walk through the villages and the hostal was great, even had a fantastic resturant so didn't really explore the towns nightlife, which didn't seem to be much anyway.
- comments