I don’t know how or why or even if Copacabana, Bolivia is in any way related to Copacabana beach in Brazil, or any of the many nightclubs that bear that name, but it’s fun to say, and that was our next destination.
After the tired-tired-so-very-tired boat ride to the floating islands of the Uros, we continued on around the shore of Lake Titicaca, and even our first glimpse of the Altiplano geology wasn’t enough to keep my interest and we were both struggling stay awake until we got to the border. Eventually we arrived at the border town of Yungoyo, where we debarked the bright red Peru Hop bus, collected all our stuff, and walked to the border station where we embarked on a riveting couple of hours of standing in interminable lineups in the hot sun with several other busloads of blinking tourists at 3800m with all our gear. Suffice to say the border crossing went smoothly for us and our Canadian passports, and less smoothly for our American fellow travelers, some of whom were not aware they should have looked into their visa situation before arriving at the border.
Once all the lineups and passport photos and payments and visas and stamps were sorted out, we all straggled up a hill and over a bridge and under a sign that says “Bienvenidos a Bolivia” and ta-da! We found ourselves in Bolivia! We regrouped with the rest of our intrepid overnight bus companions, were greeted warmly by our Bolivian tour guides, and with the handover from Peru Hop to Bolivia Hop complete, we boarded the bright green Bolivia Hop bus for a mercifully short ride into Copacabana.
Many travelers only stay one night in Copacabana, striking out for the archaeological/spiritual tours of Isla del Sol or Isla de la Luna in the morning, and continuing on to La Paz the next day. Some even do it as a day trip. But we had other plans.
Our friends had stayed in a lovely hostel here several years ago, and it was so highly recommended that we’d booked four nights. It IS our honeymoon, after all!
The hostel is called Las Olas, and it is an absolute dream. Owned by a German-Bolivian couple and built by hand, the hostel consists of several pavilions built into the hillside about 10 minutes’ walk (straight uphill) from the waterfront.
We were shown to our suite “La Tortuga” – so named because it’s shaped like a turtle (obviously), which featured a pair of hammocks on the second story, a circular bed, a tiny woodstove, floor-to-ceiling windows with views to the northwest over Lake Titicaca, and a shower shaped like a nautilus shell with more hot water than we’d encountered anywhere else in South America thus far. So, basically the perfect place. There were more hammocks on the terrace, and llamas nibbling the grass. Bliss.
After collapsing for several hours, we went to find some food. As it turned out, we couldn’t use the local bank machines, so we trekked back to the hostel and pleaded our case with the owners: we had some cash, but needed to save it because what if our bank cards didn’t work in Bolivia AT ALL?!. The kind owners let us just put everything on a tab while we crossed our fingers to find a bank machine that worked for us the next day, and we settled in to an amazing plate of gnocchi in the restaurant of “La Cupola” – the sister hostel next door. For the next several days, we mostly lounged in the hammocks and on the sunny terraces. We went back to La Cupola’s sun-drenched enclosed patio breakfast room slash restaurant for every meal. We befriended the hostel cats. There was a large bookshelf at reception with books you could borrow to take back to your cozy hammock nook. We watched the tourist buses roll in by the beach in the morning, disgorge their loads for a handful of hours to frolic in the lake or set out resolutely for another tour to the islands, and roll out again in the early afternoon. We ate lake trout and gnocchi for four days straight. We barely left the hostel.
And did I mention the VIEWS?
We also made friends with some of the other residents.
We did eventually make it out for a couple of brief hikes (both essentially vertical climbs to points of interest), but the large bed, hot water, and quiet were a much needed break at the midway point of our trip.
Honeymoon? Sweet! 