Copacabana - Bolivia 25th March

Copacabana from the hillside church yard

Copacabana & Isla Del Sol
Copacabana is a small town on the southern edge of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. With only 6000 inhabitants the town is primarily set up for tourists wanting to get over to Isla del Sol (island of the sun), which was an important site in Inca times. It was reputed that the first Inca emerged from here, as well as the sun.

We spent a night in Cocacabana before getting a boat over to the island. It wasn't what we had been expecting, the islands services were extremely basic but it was nice to get away and walk around the island looking at the Inca ruins. The views and scenery were absolutely amazing!


Stunning views of Lake Titicaca


Inca ruins overlooking Lake Titicaca (or Lake Tits)


Local people, sheep and pigs

Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca is the world's highest navigatable lake sitting at 3811 metres above sea level. It is located in both Bolivia and Peru and provides the locals with their beloved trucha (trout). Since 2000 it's water levels have been receding as the rainy seasons are shortening and due to the melting of the glaciers that feed it. It was great being here and seeing Lake Titcaca as it has so much history and especially for being the birth place for the sun and moon in Inca mythology.

La Paz - Bolivia 23rd March

The surrounding urban hills of La Paz

La Paz

La Paz is not the capital of Bolivia but is probably the most well known due to it being at such a high altitude and being overlooked by the towering triple-peaked Illimani mountains. We arrived into La Paz from Uyuni at 5 in the morning. We wandered around dazed and confused trying to find a hostel and then were told we would have to wait until 2.00pm to check in! How frustrating! It was a lovely city to explore and wander around, although we were a little out of breath due to the altitude. We were there for 3 days in total and during this time the people of La Paz were constantly on strike for various reasons, we were told that this was very common for Bolivia! The highlights of the city for us were the Metropolitan Cathedral and San Francisco church, the witches market where one could pick up a dried llama fetus and the Coca Museum. It was interesting to read about the Bolivians opinion on Coca, which has been chewed here for hundreds of years.


Pigeons are the same the World over

Wanna buy some llama fetuses? La Paz is your place

Chile to Bolivia

Amazing views of the back of Lucy´s head

San Pedro de Atacama

We found out in San Pedro that the easiest way for us to get into Bolivia was to take a three day tour finishing at the salt flats of Uyuni. We booked a tour with an agency (not really finding out a great deal about it) and set off early the next day. The roads to Uyuni are dirt tracks so the only way to get around is by 4 x 4, however before the journey started we had a 2 hour bus journey to the Bolivian border. This was basically a shack in the middle of nowhere with a flag sticking out of it. From here the bus group was split up into jeeps and off we went.


Bolivian border immigration building - an architectural masterpiece

The scenery along the way was absolutely amazing, we were at such high altitude it was like being on top of the world, snow capped mountains surrounded us and the only plants around were small shrubs that can survive with very little water. We stopped at various salt lakes named different colours depending on the minerals in them, steaming hot gysers and hot springs. Our final stop was a lake called Laguna Colorada which has one of the largest flamingo populations in the world. We stayed in a very run down and basic building for the night and had to wear all our clothes in bed to stay warm...hmm maybe we should have found out some more details of the tour beforehand.


Steaming, eggy pools


Beautiful Laguna Colorada

Our driver with lollipop

The next day we set off early as it was a long drive to Uyuni. The landscape changed from desolate mountains and shrubs and became more rocky, we stopped at an area which is known as Salvador Dali due to the very strange and out of place boulders. From here we descended altitude slightly and stopped at another area which had boulders everywhere, it was like something out of the Flintstones. As we were now at a lower altitude there was more plant life and subsequently more people.

Strange rock formations

We stopped at a tiny dusty town for lunch and were mesmerised with the indigenous dress, particularly the women who wore huge skirts and bowler hats. Their hair was long and plaited and joined together at the bottom with fabric. Just before we got to Uyuni we stopped at a train graveyard and then stayed for the night at a local hotel.

The following day we went to the Salar de Uyuni, it is the worlds largest salt flat which sits at a lofty 3653 metres and covers an area of 12106 square kilometres. It is part of a prehistoric salt lake which covered most of southwest Bolivia. Now most of it has dried up apart from a few smaller lakes. It was a strange yet beautiful sight to see, white reflective liquid as far as the eye could see seemed to merge into the sky.

If you wanted pepper, you're well out of luck


Salt crystals