We arrived here on 24th December to the lakeside town of Copacobana to spend Christmas. We were very happy to make it here at all given Jo's nasty bout of illness in Uyuni. She was let out of hospital on the evening of the 22nd and we caught one of the 'luxury' cama buses that night to La Paz, the Bolivian capital. I use the word luxury relative to Bolivia, not luxury compared to the many other buses we've taken in South America. It was a pretty rough ride given the state of the roads in Bolivia but we arrived in La Paz on schedule the next morning. La Paz is set in a valley, and most impressive it looks too as you look at it from the top when it first comes into view with the mountain backdrop. However, it's absolutely chaotic when you get into the city itself. We went to the bus terminal and booked ourselves on the first bus we could find to Copacapana. This involved the bus company putting us in a taxi to another part of town to pick the bus up. This ride showed that La Paz takes the biscuit in terms of traffic free for all's. The junctions were completly lawless and it was each man (vehicle) for himself. Stuart found the whole thing highly amusing, Jo less so in her recovering state. Our 'bus' turned out to be a mini van which ended up being jam packed with Bolivians so it wasn't the most comforatable journey. The road out of La Paz to Copacabana revealed the true state of Bolivian poverty and it was quite upsetting. Children lined the road for long stretches with their hands or hats out begging for money. God knows where they lived as there were some quite remote areas. After 3 1/2 hours we reached Copacabana which sits on Lake Titicaca, and at 3800m is the worlds highest lake. To be honest the place was a bit of a dissapointment in terms of scenery. We were expecting a lovely lakeside town like Bariloche but it wasn't to be. Additionally as the rainy season had started the weather wasn't too great. Still, the town had it's own quirky charm with it's rasta/hippy atmosphere and had some decent restaurants and was obviously pretty cheap. After bailing out of our hostel after one night as it was a rip off we found a reasonable hotel on the waterfront for $10 a night. It also provided a few days rest for Jo who was obviously going to take time to recover from her illness and was suffering bouts of weakness and headaches understandably. Unfortunately we did have a bit of a Christmas day disaster in terms of our meal. Just before we set out it bucketed down with rain and with the accompanying electrical storm most of the towns lights went out. All the decent looking toursist restaurants were either closed, full or clearly weren't serving without power. With us getting wetter and wetter we went in the first restaurant that appeared to have a bit of character. Mistake......BIG mistake!! Stuart was served a pizza that truly minged (an achievement in itself) and the chips with Jo's chicken had black bruises all through them. Additionally Stuart couldn't find beer on the menu (the horror) and was served a glass of wine that tasted more like vinegar than vinegar. It truly was the Christmas dinner from hell! We returned back to our hotel at 9.45 to eat a banana for desert with Stuart sober, entirely against his wishes. A very un-merry Christmas for the Whitneys!! Fortunately our sense of humour was just about intact enough to survive this episode. So much has gone right on this trip there had to be a moment like this somewhere! Interestingly this restaurant from hell was full of Bolivians. They say when abroad, eat where the locals eat. We say, when in Bolivia don't. Eat where the tourists eat! On our last full day we visited the Isle de la Sol, the supposed birthplace of the Incas. Unfortunatley the guide only spoke Spanish so we have no idea as to the no doubt fascinating history of the Incas!! We left on 28th December for Cusco, Peru. The good news being that Jo had just about fully recovered and was looking to be fighting fit for the Inca trail on 2nd January.