Titicaca Lake on the Bolivian side, in Copacabana

DISCLAIMER : this article is 100% from Matt (the writing, the pictures and  of course the bad jokes). So please do not hold me up to the high standards you are used to with Maider!

Time to leave Cusco and Peru to go to Copacabana in Bolivia. Our night bus is supposed to leave at 10:30 pm, and as good Europeans, we get at the bus terminal well in advance… what a mistake! We learn that our bus will be at least two hours late… meaning we have to wait at least 3 hours in the cold and uncomfortable terminal (at least I got to finish my book 🙂 ). We finally board the bus and leave Cusco around 1 am…

The bus ride is fine, except for once the temperature in the bus is super hot and Maider is not feeling good at all. Looks like the stomach flu is coming back…

Around 12 pm we are told that we need to hop off the bus, indeed the bus is continuing to La Paz and we need to switch buses to get to Copacabana. We gently get off the bus, find our backpacks and start following a Peruvian guy, thinking he is bringing us to our bus to the Peruvian and Bolivian boarder. BUT he turns back, takes a phone call and once he is done, he explains that we are too late for the bus, we now need to pay extra to take a cab to the boarder, pass the boarder on foot and find a bus on the Bolivian side to get to Copacabana. I am absolutely furious, we paid a bus ticket to get us all the way to Copacabana and know we need to pay extra, unfortunately I don’t speak Spanish so I turn to Maider. She looks me in the eye and says « I don’t care we are paying for the taxi, we need to reach Copacabana as soon as possible because I am literally going to shit my pants ». Roger that! We hop in the cab, cross the boarder on foot and find a collectivo to Copacabana. While doing all this I am carrying both Maider’s and my bag (thank God I kept up weight lifting in Chicago) because Maider is clearly too weak to lift up anything.

We finally arrive at our hostel in Copacabana around 1 pm (our scheduled arrival time was initially 8:30am) and Maider goes running for the bathroom where she will spend the most of her afternoon.

I get out of the hostel to grab a bite to eat and buy some groceries and Coca Cola for Maider. I manage to buy rice, onions and bell peppers with my more than limited Spanish… thankfully I stopped my Spanish lessons at lesson number 3! Lesson number 3 was about numbers! So at least I understand how much stuff costs and don’t look like an idiot handing out 100 boliviano bills for stuff that cost 2 bolivianos.

We spend the rest of the afternoon in our room where we have no choice but to read books, indeed all electricity in Copacabana is shut down and right as it comes back up a huge storm starts and the city turns powerless all night!

The next day Maider isn’t feeling any better but the power is back up. Unfortunately the storm hit the telecommunications center and internet is down in the entire city. Guess there will be no Netflix for Maider, just good old books. As for me I decide to go and explore the lake Titicaca.

Indeed, Copacabana sits by the Titicaca lake which is the highest navigable lake in the world at 12,500 ft above sea level. It also happens to be my favorite lake in the whole wild world! Indeed, when I was about 12 I simply loved the name of the lake! Because in French, Titicaca sounds very close to “Piss and Poop”, and what is more funny to a teenage boy than those two words? I decided to leave Maider alone in bed and go explore my favorite lake by bike!

I rented a bike with our hostel and of course it was way to small for me, seems like Bolivians are as small as Peruvians… but there I go, all happy, and leave Copacabana to follow the coast. The weather isn’t too great, the sky still grey and the sun pops out once in a while, but luckily after a few miles there are no clouds to be seen and then scenery is beautiful. The huge lake with all these mountains around is really pretty and I do my best to capture it on camera… Maider usually handles this.

On my way, I stop by the Virgin and say a little prayer for Maider’s poop. Hoping it will gain some consistency fast 🙂 .

I continue along the dirt road, and boy I am struggling. The bike is way too short, and the gears don’t shift correctly. So mid way uphill, I need to stop, hop off my bike to manually change gears and hope back on. It takes me for ever to get up the first hill and I feel exhausted, the altitude is absolutely not helping. I stop again to chew on some Coca leaves to get more energy, and thankfully the road goes down again to a small floating village.

On my way, I pass a beautiful little church that I would have most definitely gone to when I was a kid (I mean check out that awesome basket-ball hoop !).

I manage to cycle to another small village and stop by the lake to take some pictures. The sun is completely out now and the scenery is beautiful.

I continue down the road hoping to bike all the way up to a mirador. But I have already biked 5.5 miles and the mirador is at least another 3 miles all uphill and I need to think about getting back to Copacabana… So I decide to turn around and come back.

And that was absolutely the right decision. As I get closer to Copacabana I can see huge dark clouds coming my way. Looks like we are in for another storm… I pack the camera safely in my backpack, throw on my raincoat and start peddling as fast as I can to avoid the rain. Unfortunately on top of being too short, my bike’s handlebar is killing my hands on the rough road, and my saddle is so hard and uncomfortable that my ass still hurts as I am writing these lines (it’s been three days now…). I finally get in the hostel before it starts pouring, I am exhausted and run in the shower before the power cuts off. Indeed, in Bolivia waters is heated directly at the shower head with some electrical element. So without electricity the water is freezing cold.

After a few minutes, it starts pouring rain and we can hear thunder, give it another few minutes and the power shuts off again. Looks like we are in for another night of reading with our headlamps!

By the way, the prayer I made with the Virgin didn’t work, Maider is still spending half her time sitting on the stall…

After a great cold night (finally no bathroom trips for Maider) we wake up and decide this is finally the morning for Maider to see what Copacabana is like (she hasn’t left the room since we got here). Unfortunately, it is still raining outside, we go down to breakfast, book our bus to La Paz departing at 1:30pm hoping the rain won’t last long. And indeed the rain didn’t last long. As we were still at breakfast the rain became snow!!!! Guess we won’t visit Copacabana today.

We had to check out of our hostel at 10am, so between 10am and 1:30pm we needed to figure out what to do. We walked around Copacabana to find an internet cafe since we needed to find and book a hostel for the night in La Paz. We have been 3 days with no access to internet so impossible to do any research on La Paz. Unfortunately, internet in the entire city is shut down and both internet cafes we stopped by confirmed that. We decided to stop in a small restaurant and order some hot food while waiting for the bus. The snow/rain hasn’t stopped all day... It’s finally 1pm, time to board the bus. An awfully long and cold morning, we have only one thing in mind sit in the bus and get to La Paz, hoping the weather will be better.

For those who have read the entire post, thank you for being patient! I don’t have half the creative brain than Maider has when it comes to storytelling and photography. But you can rest assured, Maider is now feeling better and will be writing the next articles and taking all the pics!