Copacabana – Not Typical Bolivia

On May 27, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn South America8 Comments

Of all of the places that we visited while we were in Bolivia, Copacabana felt strangely out of place. It was very much a tourist destination with resorts sitting on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We’re glad that we went to Copacabana towards the end of our trip in Bolivia and not at the beginning because it might have completely changed the way that we viewed the country. It was the only place in Bolivia where we saw other travelers, mostly on their way out of Bolivia and heading into Peru, which is on the other side of the lake, with Cusco and Machu Picchu being within a day’s travel. If they weren’t heading out of Bolivia, they were on their way into Bolivia from Peru and heading to Uyuni Salt Flats, seemingly the only place that people visit in Bolivia. We sat in a café and watched the parade of young people with their backpacks getting into or out of buses as they passed through this idyllic little town.

Like everyplace we visited in Bolivia, it wasn’t easy to get to Copacabana, the roads were horrendous with apparent construction every few thousand feet where it just seemed that the road was torn up for no apparent reason. The only construction workers that we saw were placing rocks on parts of the road that were apparently re-paved, but weren’t ready for traffic yet or they just didn’t want traffic to be able to move smoothly. We also had to take a ferry across part of Lake Titicaca with cars and buses floating back and forth. We know it is a pretty common Latin American attitude, but no one is in a hurry to get anyplace in Bolivia and we got used to sitting and waiting everywhere that we went, including when crossing on the ferry. You wouldn’t know that Lake Titicaca and Copacabana are one of the biggest tourist destinations in Bolivia based upon the road conditions, but apparently thousands of tourists and Bolivians visit Copacabana all of the time.

The resort where we stayed had incredible views of the bay and we were promised a gorgeous sunset over Lake Titicaca and we weren’t disappointed. After days of non-stop running from place to place, it was actually pretty nice to sit and relax in a beach resort, a very different experience than anything else that we did in Bolivia. Instead of Spanish, it seemed that French and German were the dominating languages while we were in Copacabana, a strange change of pace. As with every resort town, there were plenty of restaurants and food stalls along the beach to choose from and a cold cerveza was an absolute must. We ended up having lunch at a place called Manchester United, named after the English Premier Football (Soccer) team, which seemed an odd choice for a name, and had an incredible version of Pollo Macho.

When we first arrived in town we headed to the local church, which is the center of every town in Bolivia. Apparently people from around Bolivia come to Copacabana to have their new cars blessed by the Catholic priest and then they drive it up to the temple on top of the mountain outside of town to have it blessed by a Quechua priest as well. Two blessings, one location. The cars are elaborately adorned with an array of flowers and they looked as though they were being prepared for a parade. In fact, there are so many cars that come to Copacabana to be blessed that there is a very active market across the street from the church taking advantage of all of the people who have come to visit. The church itself was beautiful and is the typical Spanish style church found all over Bolivia, which is an extremely religious country.

The following day we would venture out onto Lake Titicaca to visit the islands and learn about the temples, but our day in Copacabana was completely relaxing. The hotels were some of the nicest that we saw anyplace in Bolivia and the town had a Bolivian flare to a beach resort. If it weren’t for the women dressed in typical Aymara clothing, you wouldn’t even know that you were still in Bolivia. With all of the boats in the bay, hotels, restaurants, and shops, we could have easily been on the coast of the Mediterranean instead of Lake Titicaca. It is certainly worth visiting if you go to Bolivia, but make sure that you visit other parts of Bolivia first so that you have a greater appreciation for the amenities that this resort town has to offer.

Lessons Learned

On May 26, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Photo Challenge, South America6 Comments

Every trip brings with it a series of experiences, mostly good, but not always. And with those experiences come opportunities to learn. To learn new things about a culture, about history, the people, and sometimes even yourself. This week’s Discover Challenge is about learning and so we figured it would be a timely opportunity to consider what we learned from our travels within Bolivia. We certainly learned a great deal about the Incan culture between our visits to Incallajta, Tiwanaku, and the islands of Lake Titicaca. We also found that our grasp of the Spanish language was not nearly sufficient for a country where people who spoke English were few and far between, but we also learned that push come to shove, we were able to communicate effectively enough. Whether spending the night in jungle, zip-lining in the canopy, riding cable cars above the city, or going into caves filled with bats, we discovered that we even more adventurous than we previously believed that we were.

Temple on Sun Island with Moon Island in the Distance

There is a saying that you learned everything that you needed to learn in life in your first years of school. In many ways we believe that this is true. You learn how to interact with other people, follow rules of society, and most importantly learn how to learn. Once you learn how to learn, learning becomes second nature and you’ll spend the rest of your life looking forward to learning new things. We were so fascinated by the history of Bolivia, and specifically the Incas, that we’re looking to buy a couple of books and delve even deeper into those subjects. We usually do a lot of reading in advance of heading to someplace that we haven’t visited before, but we didn’t do as much preparation for this trip. In some ways that made each discovery during our adventure that much more enjoyable as we literally learned something new every day.

With every trip that we take, we come home feeling more enriched than when we left. We feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from many different people during our travels. If you have the opportunity to work with guides while travelling within a country, you will often get to learn even more than if you just explore a country on your own. We like to do a combination of the two, exploring on our own and working with guides, trying to get the best of both worlds. Life is a constant learning experience and if we ever stop learning we will stop growing and travelling.

Bolivia – Land of Untapped Potential

On May 24, 2016July 24, 2017 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn South America14 Comments

Our trip to Bolivia was one of the most interesting trips that we’ve ever taken and we have a lot of experiences that we want to share. Before we describe each unique adventure that we were able to enjoy, we wanted to share our overall impressions of Bolivia in general. As with all countries, Bolivia is a very complex nation with a lot of contradictions, aspirations, and impediments to success. Everyone we met along our journey was extremely nice and helpful, but they all expressed a similar impression of their country. It is a land rich with potential, but that potential is being squandered due to mismanagement and corruption from the political leaders who rule the country.

Despite the success of surrounding countries like Peru, Chile, and Argentina, Bolivia seems to be stubbornly holding onto the past, which is great for a visitor, but not necessarily good for its people. While these other countries have embraced tourism, the people of Bolivia may want travelers to come to their country, but seeing the sites that the country has to offer is not an easy endeavor. Just getting from one place to another can be risky and life threatening or is often very expensive. Because of that, we were able to only see a fraction of what the country has to offer, but it isn’t going to deter us from visiting Bolivia again, as we truly want to see more of this wonderful country.

From our conversations with people in the United States, people often know nothing or very little about Bolivia. Usually the conversation goes something like, “isn’t that where they wear the bowler hats?” or “that’s where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed, right?”. Perhaps they’ve heard of La Paz, but few associate it with the Inca empire or relate to the ruins the same way that they might refer to Machu Picchu in Peru. As far as the bowler hats, people are partially correct. There are three major tribes that trace their ancestry back to before the Incas and each has their own traditional dress and language. In fact, as you venture out of the cities and into the countryside, you are likely to meet people who speak no Spanish at all, the standard language of Bolivia and South America, but who speak their ancestral language. We saw people from two of those major groups, Aymara and Quechua. Outside of Cochabamba, where we spent our first week in Bolivia, the people are Quechua and the women wear white hats, while outside of La Paz the people are Aymara and are the ones that where bowler hats.

Seventy percent of the land in Bolivia is covered by jungle and rainforest, while the rest is either high in the Andes mountains or on open plains, such as the Uyuni Salt Flats. In fact, the salt flats are probably Bolivia’s biggest tourism draw at the moment, but something that we didn’t get the opportunity to see during our trip because we simply didn’t have the time or money to make it there. Road conditions in Bolivia are horrendous and travel by bus can take days or even weeks to get places. You can fly to some smaller cities, but the prices are usually outrageous. However, to and from the major cities, La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz, flights are not only convenient, but they are cheap as well. In fact, we flew with BOA (Boliviana de Aviación), which had flights from La Paz to Cochabamba leaving about every hour and a half and it was one of the best airline experiences we’ve ever had. Our round-trip tickets cost the two of us a total of less than $150 USD and our flights were on time and the service was excellent.

The ancient ruins that we were able to see, both Inca and pre-historic, were definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Oddly though, the Bolivian people don’t have much of an interest in their own history and therefore these sites are not as fully examined as they would be in other countries and because there isn’t a lot of tourism, they aren’t visited often. Being the only people at a site, just us and our guide, made seeing them even more enjoyable, but at the same time made us rather sad that these historical sites were not being relished and cared for in the way that they truly deserve. They are very proud of the fact that they haven’t rebuilt any of the sites in order to show what they might have looked like, but there are also probably many more buildings and ruins left undiscovered and buried beneath the land. Other than the time that we spent in Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, we saw very few tourists anywhere during our trip. And the people that we saw in Copacabana were most likely just passing through on their way to or from Peru, which is on the other side of the lake.

The other common perception of Bolivia, at least in the United States, is that it is the country where most of the cocaine comes from. Unfortunately that is true and growing coca leaves is one of the largest crops that Bolivia produces, much of it legally, but there is also a fair amount of illegal growth as well. It is common to see people chewing on coca leaves and it was even on our breakfast buffet at the hotel in La Paz. Other than coca leaves, the country grows everything that it needs in very fertile soil, including potatoes, strawberries, bananas, tangerines, lemons, and quinoa. Unfortunately, the demand from other countries for the cocaine that is made from the coca leaves has made that the largest cash crop in the country. It has also created the culture of political corruption as well as a desire not to have prying eyes from tourists, which is probably part of the reason that they make it difficult for tourists to visit the country.

Bolivia truly is a fascinating country with plenty to offer the world. Right now it is like a gem that has yet to be polished to reveal its true splendor, but there will likely come a day in the near future when tourists flock to Bolivia to see all that it has to offer. From the animals of the jungle, the amazing Amazon river, the high ranges of the Andes, dinosaur tracks, ancient ruins, humble cities and friendly people, there is much to see and do in Bolivia, if people are willing to venture there. We had heard a lot about petty crime and pickpockets before we left and were on our guard everyplace that we went, but we found that our concerns were pretty much unnecessary. Every country has places where crime is prevalent and people should be wary, but we didn’t find Bolivia to be any worse than any other country that we’ve visited. We hope that more people will visit this incredible country and we will definitely return again. Maybe on our next trip we won’t be the only foreigners that we see as we explore the many treasures that Bolivia has to offer.