Day 231: Copacabana (16/09/2011)

Copa Copacabana – where music and fashion are always the passion….

That is, if you are happy with pan pipes and three day old socks.

Rio’s is the better known but Bolivia’s Copa was the first and is ultimately responsible for Barry’s crimes.

His lesser known hits include “That barbeque wasn’t worth 120 Bolivianos” and “Dogs that fight in the night”.

Sadly Copacobana, Bolivian style is not an exotic blend of big lapels and expensive cocktails. Rather, it is a world of fibreglass Swan pedaloes and fruit salad for breakfast.

We arrived in the late afternoon and after a cold wash, wandered up the hill to Fatima’s Bistro. A sunset barbeque was planned and we drank beer on an austere concrete roof top as the fiery horizon faded from gold to orange and then to purple. The food hadn’t materialised as the chill began to take hold and eventually we went downstairs, taking the tables and chairs with us.

One hundred and twenty Bolivianos later we left full but dissatisfied as the beautiful red meat that sat by the barbeque, turned out to be a tangle of gristle.

After breakfast we gathered for an 8.30am boat to Isla Del Sol, the largest island on Lake Titicaca.

Fatima’s son, Gabriel was our guide and herded us aboard a vaguely unseaworthy papier-mache craft that chugged us out across the lake, taking in water as it did so. The outboards struggled valiantly to push the little craft along but a prevailing wind on the nose put paid to much of our progress.

2 ½ hours later we finally reached the south side of the island and disembarked onto the rickety wooden pier and up the steep slope to the beginning of the round the island walk.

Lake Titicaca is nearly 9,000 square kilometres, 65km at its widest point and 175km at its longest. Peru controls 60% and Bolivia 40%. The surface of the lake is 3,903m above sea level at the Bolivian shore and 3,257m at the Peruvian side due to extensive water redirection programmes - at least Sophie believed it.

We stopped at ruined temples to the God of Dry Stone Walls and trekked slowly to a series of false summits. The air at 5,000m contains half the oxygen than at sea level and soon the group extended into a long hypoxic line of stragglers.

We peed in a rocky scree at an altitude bettered only by the airline toilets flying overhead but the slope was steep and the ground uneven. One of us ended up scratched and sore after falling into a spiky bush during the process.

Tired and ready for food, we descended a long set of steps from the summit to the harbour where the impatient ferryman was waiting. The steps went from the dry tundra at the top to the lush verdant terraces cut into the mountainsides by the Inca priests to grow corn.

A small waterfall burbled down the hill alongside the steps and colourfully dressed Andean women marched up and down the steps carrying produce or babes in their shoulder cloths as we paused for breath whilst admiring the bucolic scene.

On the way out, the skipper made one detour and passed through a gap so narrow and shallow that we all craned our necks over the transom to watch the hull fracture on the jagged rocks below.

Local knowledge is a great thing and we passed through uneventfully and into the Copacabana bay. Dozens of tour boats fought for space and close manoeuvring brought the list craft within inches of splintering collisions but the expert pilots always seemed to flick the rudder at the last minute and the boats span on the proverbial dime before brushing past each other with a friendly wave from skipper to skipper.

We gave Fatima a miss tonight and opted for the originally named Copacabana Bar. The Filet Mignon arrived in the form of an uncooked triple decker bacon burger. Matters took a serious turn when they lit the fire to ward off the chill and my man-made fibre jacket began to shrink-wrap me in the heat.

Clare reminded me over dinner that today was the 1^st anniversary of something special.

I can't remember what.