At the Copacabana – Bolivia

By Alli Sinclair

I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for pristine lakes with snow-capped peaks. Not only are they a photographer’s and hiker’s paradise, they bring a sense of peace to this chaotic world, especially after visiting some of South America’s busiest cities.

The first time I visited Lake Titicaca, I traveled from the Bolivian side. I’d journeyed from La Paz and was looking forward to finding solace from the horns, pollution, and swarming bodies of a busy city. Being the girly-swat that I am, I’d studied the history of the lake, pored over countless photos (no Internet back then), and created visions of this majestic lake in my mind. I’d imagined a stunning body of water but no matter how fruitful my imagination, I wasn’t prepared for the reality – Lake Titicaca rivaled some of the most beautiful lakes I’d ever seen (and that was saying a lot, especially after hiking through the Indian and Nepalese Himalayas).

Straddling the border of Bolivia and Peru, Lake Titicaca is the highest commercially navigable lake in the world and is rich in history, beauty, and politics. The name Titicaca translates as Puma Rock, a name given by the Incas who believed the lake looked like a puma chasing a rabbit.

Even though Bolivia is a land-locked country, the majority of the country’s naval force is based at Lake Titicaca. The navy employs 2,000 personnel, has a naval school, and they own 173 vessels that patrol large rivers as well as this gorgeous lake. Bolivians believe one day they’ll regain the land they lost to Chile during the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) and this hope is so strong Bolivians celebrate the Dia del Mar (Day of the Sea) every year and ask Chile to give back Bolivia’s lost land. Perhaps one day, they might get a yes.

Copacabana is a village on the shores of the lake and is close to the Peruvian border. Sure, it has a beach, but it isn’t quite in the same realm as Rio’s Copacabana – there are no men or women wearing swimmers that disappear up their bottom, no tanned athletic bodies, and certainly no surf. But this sleepy town has it’s own uniqueness, especially when it comes to dining. I’ve never been a fan of trout but when I tried the fish pulled out from the lake only a couple of hours earlier, I quickly became a convert.

It’s worth staying in Copacabana for at least a couple of days to hike the trails leading to mountaintops that offer unsurpassed views of the lake and Andes, as well as discovering Inca ruins that can only be accessed by foot. And a must-see is the Basilica of Our Lady Copacabana, the patron saint of Bolivia. It’s easy to overdose on beautiful churches in Latin America so if you only intend to visit a handful, put this one up the top of the list.

Framed by bright blue skies, the whitewashed walls of the church make a spectacular entrance into this gorgeous house of God. It is believed the church was built on the Incan Temple of Fertility of Kotakawana, reinforcing Copacabana as a sacred place well before the Spanish arrived.

Legend has it that in 1576 some fishermen were caught in a terrible storm on Lake Titicaca. They prayed for help and the Virgin Mary appeared, leading them to safety. To show their gratitude they built a shrine in her honor. Another story is about Tito Yupanqui, a man who dreamed about the sailors and the appearance of the Virgin Mary. He was so affected by the dream that he travelled to Potosi to learn how to sculpt. He hand-carved the Virgin from cactus wood and carried his creation on his back across the 400 miles from Potosi. The sculpture was placed in the church and it is said that those who didn’t believe in the Virgin’s powers soon experienced crop loss. In the 1800s, another image of the Virgin was created and taken to Brazil’s most famous beach – Copacabana.

If you happen to be in the neighborhood around February 2-5 (it happens every year), stay for the celebrations that attract people from all over the world. The Fiesta de la Virgen de Candelaria has Aymara dancers from the region, plenty of music played by traditional bands, and lots of dancing, drinking, and eating. New vehicles, including trucks adorned with bling, are blessed with beer out the front of the church. On the third day of the fiesta 100 bulls are placed in a stone corral and brave (ie very drunk) revelers jump into the arena and try to avoid being gored.

Luckily, I had enough sense to avoid the bulls, but being included by the locals and dancing the days away is an experience I’ll always treasure. It’s been ten years since my last trip to this beautiful lake and I’m well overdue for another visit. Perhaps 2013 will be the year of returning to my favorite places in the world. I guess I’d better buy that lottery ticket…

Off The Beaten Track: Island Life

Olya Gurevich holds a PhD in Linguistics and is an expert on Russian and Georgian morphology.  She works for Microsoft, helping make Bing a better search engine.  She lives in San Francisco with her husband, two cats, and a minus-one-month old who will surely become an intrepid traveler once she realizes that the outside world is a pretty interesting place to be. Today Olya shares her Peru story.

Lake Titicaca sits high in the Andes, at 3,800 meters above sea level. It divides Peru and Bolivia and is the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. Peruvians claim that they have the “titi” side and the Bolivians have the “caca” side. I have not been to Bolivia, but I imagine they would disagree.

Because the lake is so high up, the sunshine is blinding, and a gringo can get sunburned in a matter of minutes. The expansive views, combined with the rarified air, literally take your breath away. To add to the scenery, the islands in the middle of the lake house ancient villages, which have recently become a tourist draw.

 We set off from the rather unattractive port town of Puno, on the south side of the lake.  The two-day boat tour starts by spending a few hours on the floating island of Uros, made entirely of reeds and not attached to any land. The local population speaks Aymara, one of the Native American languages with a robust number of fluent speakers.  Everything on Uros seems to be made out of woven reeds: the ground, the houses, the boats, the overlook tower. It does, however, seem maintained mostly for the tourists, and few people permanently live on the island.  

Our next stop is the island of Amantani, where we will spend the night. About 800 Quechua-speaking families live here, and they take turns hosting tourists for a small fee.  There is no running water or electricity, save for a few solar-powered lights, and of course, no roads or cars. So once the sun sets, it’s eerily quiet and very cold.

Our hostess is a young woman named Amais. She meets us at the boat dock and leads us back to her house along a narrow path barely visible in the arid ground, winding up among terraces planted mostly with varieties of potato – after all, Peru is the spud’s birthplace. Amais speaks to us in Spanish, but it is clearly not her mother tongue. This is to our advantage, since she speaks more clearly and slowly than a native speaker would.

Amais lives in a two-room house with a separate kitchen shed. We get one of the dirt-floored rooms. The household consists of her, her four-year-old daughter, her son who looks to be about 8, and her elderly mother. There is no sign of a husband, and in general, there are very few men of working age on the island – either they’re off on the mainland making money, or gone altogether. Instead, the boy acts as a responsible head of household after he comes home from school, taking care of the household animals and translating between us and his grandmother, who speaks only Quechua.

First things first: Amais spreads out a selection of colorful knit hats, one of which we obligingly buy. In the meantime, the little girl is impatient to get our attention. She drags me off to show me her favorite playing spot up in a tree, then happily poses for the camera holding a baby sheep. She is playful and adorable beyond belief, but eventually the strict grandmother comes along and tells her (I imagine) to stop bothering the guests.

It’s time for the tour of the island. We meet the rest of the people from our boat for a short trek up the two sacred peaks. Pachamama (Mother Earth) and Pachatata (Father Earth) preside atop the island, decorated with ruins of ancient temples that provide surreally beautiful outlooks onto the water below. At this altitude, even a short uphill walk requires frequent stops, and we feel very accomplished when we make it to the top. We linger by a concession stand selling welcome coca leaf tea and manage to miss the rest of our group departing. By the time we get back down, it has gotten dark and we have no idea where to go. The tour guide is still there, but he is not local and doesn’t know the lay of the land, so he gets a passing boy to take us back to Amais’s house for a few coins. The boy obliges, and we follow him in the dark. However, it turns out that there are two women named Amais on the island, and he takes us to the wrong one! Luckily, she’s home and this is a small island, so she takes us the rest of the way to “our” Amais.

In the meantime, the grandmother has made us dinner. It consists of a soup made with at least three varieties of potato (of course) and some rice with homegrown vegetables.  We are relieved that none of the guinea pigs running around the kitchen made it into our meal: although they are a Peruvian delicacy, they seem to be treated more as pets here.

Later on, we head to the center of the village for the nightly dance. Amais dresses us up in native costumes, worn above our regular clothes. This makes me feel like a Russian tea cosy doll, but at least there is no danger of getting cold.

The dance starts out slowly, as an awkward high school disco, and is clearly put on for the tourists. Soon, however, some enthusiastic Amantanians show up and drag everyone into a spinning circle. We run around accompanied by drums and chanting, and it feels good in the cold night air.

In the morning, we are sad to say goodbye to Amais’s little daughter, but we have to go back on the boat and on to the next island. As if to emphasize that this visit is truly magical, our camera is stolen the next day in Puno, so the only image of the girl and her little lamb is left in my mind.