The World Outside of Your Window

One of the things that we often do is to take photos from our hotel room whenever we visit a new city. It is partially about capturing our first experience as we arrive someplace, but there are times when it is simply that there can be great views from hotel rooms. Obviously we don’t spend a lot of time in our hotel room as we want to spend as much time actually visiting the city, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy the time that we do spend in our room. We will often start our day and end our day by looking out of the window to see the weather, enjoy the view, our sometimes see a sunset. The views can be vastly different based upon the places that you are visiting, whether it is a beach, major city, or rural location. For this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge, Windows, we are sharing some of the varieties of views we have seen during our recent journeys. Do you take photos out of the windows of the places that you stay?

Water Towers and Skyscrapers from Hotel in New York
View from Our Room in Nuremburg, Germany
Fountain at Night from Our Room in Rome
Courtyard Outside of Our Hotel in Brasov, Romania
View of Lake Titicaca in Copacabana, Bolivia

Copacabana – An Oasis in Bolivia

View of Copacabana from Lake Titicaca

Much of what we saw during our time in Bolivia was harsh, wild, and rugged. The exception to trekking the Amazon rainforest or scaling the heights of the Andes mountains was our trip to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Copacabana is a resort destination for tourists and locals alike. Having seen the relatively poor living conditions for most of the citizens of Bolivia, seeing the upscale, boutique hotels on the shore with the boats in the water was quite a juxtaposition to the rest of our experience in Bolivia.

View of Copacabana
View from Our Room
Restaurants on the Beach

To be fair, most of the boats are tour boats to take tourists out to Sun Island and Moon Island and not necessarily pleasure boats. There were paddle boats shaped like swans to rent and tour around the harbor. The main street of Copacabana is lined with tourist stores and small, family-owned restaurants. We watched as ferries arrived from Peru dropping tourists off to start their journey into the heart of Bolivia. One look at that unpaved main street and there was no mistaking that we were still in Bolivia, despite the relative luxury of the hotel where we were staying.

Main Street of Copacabana
Walking from the Beach to Town
Baby Alpacas and Swan Boats

Besides people coming to enjoy the sun and beach, the other main reason for people from Bolivia to travel to Copacabana is to have their new car blessed at the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana. Vehicles are dressed up with rings of flowers and party hats on the roofs. Vendors line the street outside of the Basilica to sell a variety of trinkets as it has a cobblestone road and is where all of the buses line up to pick up the tourists arriving on the ferries.

Vehicles Being Decorated, Check out the Hats
Church in the Main Square
Market by the Church

Staying in our hotel was like stepping out of Bolivia into a Mediterranean resort. The lawns are manicured, the restaurant was first class, and the room was spacious and comfortable. The hotel was part of the tour package that we had booked to visit the Incan ruins on Lake Titicaca and we were definitely pleasantly surprised. We ate lunch at a restaurant on the beach before heading back to La Paz that had an outdoor patio and definitely catered to English tourists. We usually choose less touristy type places, but the food was authentic and delicious.

View from the Resort
Our Room
Sunset from Our Room

All-in-all, the time in Copacabana was almost surreal compared to the rest of our time in Bolivia. If you are going to visit Lake Titicaca, taking the time to spend a night in Copacabana is well worth the extra time. Compared to how hectic most of our nineteen days in Bolivia was, sitting on our balcony and watching the sun set over Lake Titicaca was completely relaxing and refreshing. Copacabana was certainly one of the highlights of our time in Bolivia.

Manchester United Restaurant
Pollo Macho for Lunch
Sunset over Lake Titicaca