Lake Titicacacacacacacaaaaa

Monday 16th May we had to be outside our hotel at 5:45 am to catch a bus to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca (we were leaving early to try and avoid the roadbloacks due to a general strike that day in La Paz), but the bus didn´t turn up. The bus company phoned our hotel to say they had been there...but they hadn´t and told us to get a taxi to the bus station (we said only if they paid for the taxi which they did).

After about 20 minutes on the bus we reached the outskirts of La Paz and were stopped at a roadblock, they wouldn´t let us past. Other mini buses were stopped, the drivers were taken out with four men each holding them and another man would whip them with a belt in the street, before letting them through. I´m not sure if this was for the benfit of our full bus of Gringos or this was the usual procedure to get through the blockade. I´m not sure if our driver was scared or there was no way they would let a bus full of Gringos through but he didn´t get out and decided to head back and go another way. The only problem was that most people on the bus where going to Lima in Peru and there was no way it could go to Copacabana on the other route. So we had to get to the border and see if we could get a bus in the Peru side to take us a different route to Copacabana. There was about 12 of us in the same situation and we managed to get a mini bus to take us, the only problem was now that we had to got through 4 border crossings and get a stamp for each crossing (we are quickly running out of pages in our passport - but we should make it).

I decided instead of getting a nice Hotel in La Paz for my birthday that we would splash out on one in Copacabana. We managed to get a lovely cabin in La Cupula Hostel overlooking the bay, a cabin sounds quite poor but it has been done up in wood and stone and has a full glass front giving beautiful views of Lake Titicaca. We stayed there for 3 nights.

Copacabana seems to be a bit of a reggae town what with all it´s trinket selling hippies sporting skanky dreads and rastafarian tattoos, all the pubs and reasturants played various forms of Jamaican music. As Chris will have no doubt have told you in the past or maybe sometime in the future for every majestically crafted King Tubby echobass oddyessy or twisted Scratch Perry creation you have the hiedous other world of Cod Reggae inhabited by countless whinging lightweights with limp off beat rhythms. One cafe was even heard to blast out Brummie legends UB40 classic hit - Rat in the Kitchen, good advertising or what.

The idea was that on Tuesday we would do a 15km walk...well on Monday night Chris decided to go downstairs to the loo. He didn´t put the light on (despite me saying several times) and all I heard was a huge crash. I jumped out of bed, put the light on and found Chris sprawled across the foot of the stairs. I thought - please no he hasn't broken anything. At the last step he thought he was actually on the floor and managed to go over on his left foot hurting both his calf and bruising some toes in the process.

The next day he hobbled about a bit until I tactfully suggested we went back to the cabin to chill out (that was the end of the long walk...some guys will do anything to get out of things). We sat and chilled outside in the sunshine and every so often we would here a bugle for the Bolivian navy.....the strange thing is they don't have any sea to practice on - so they use the lake instead.

That evening I went up the top of the hill next to the cabin with Von (a South African whom we met travelling to Copacabana). She did 4 weeks voluntary work in the Amazon looking after wild animals (in particular puma´s) which were previously kept as domestic pets. We watched the sunset behind a huge dark cloud before heading back down the path in the moonlight....we forgot to take our torches.

All three of us went out for a meal to a rather non descript restaurant with awful food and a severe lack of service, there was even a dreadful singer playing really bad Bob Marley covers who came round the tables looking for tips after every few songs. Chris is also convinced the food in here was what caused his dodgy stomach for the next few days.

On Wednesday we met up with Von again purely by accident in the Cafe Bistro which had great coffee and fantastic French Toast. In the afternoon I let Chris persuade me to watch the UEFA cup final in the pub....well our room had no tv and we couldn´t use the one in the hotel....I managed to catch up a bit with my diary.

Both of us walked up....slowly to the top of the hill to see the sunset and that evening we went to the restaurant in the hotel. We both had trout and Chris's sauce was lovely. It wasn't too long before Chris said to me 'My stomach has been gurguling for the last few hours can we go back to the cabin'. Well I will say no more - the boy was ill.

The next day we were leaving for Isla De Sol (Island of the Sun - The Inca´s believed this is where the Sun was born). Chris didn't eat any breakfast and was pampered by the owner of the Cafe Bistro who kept bringing him huge mugs of cinnamon tea. She even made him some up in an empty water bottle for him to take on the boat. On the boat he kept his head down for the whole journey.

When we arrived on the island we had to walk up a really steep hill. There were loads of young kids offering to carry our bags but honestly they were about 7 years old....I struggled carrying my 20kg bag up for over 50 mins.....I don't know how they would have managed. Chris really looked awful so he waited at the bottom and after my climb up I went back down to get him. I met him at the top of stairs (it took me 15 mins to get up these) and took his bag up the rest of the way. The next day he didn´t even remember climbing the stairs.

When we arrived at the hotel Chris headed straight to bed - after I forced some re-hydration satchets down him.

I sat in the lounge area chatting to a couple from Athens (Tania and Paris who were both journalists). I persuaded Chris to get out of bed for a while and he joined us for dinner. Paris was really into football and you would be surprised how long two men could talk about this (bearing in mind how ill Chris was supposed to be). But the night wore on and we talked about many other things.

The next day we were supposed to do another trek (about 4 hours) but there was no way I could ask Chris to do this. After breakfast Chris just about collapsed again and then later on I really started to feel ropey. Stage 2 we both came down with the same thing.

Isla de Sol looked a great island for exploring but due to our illness we never did it any justice at all. Our room was really warm at night and the hotel was great.
The second night there were 7 of us for dinner (two Irish, two Australians and One French) but I really couldn´t face it.

We carried our bags back down the next day (funnily enough Chris didn´t offer to carry mine down!! Only kidding he did!) to get the boat back to Copacabana.

There we took the bus back to La Paz. At one point the bus stopped and we had to get off and get a ferry across the water. The boat was taken on another ferry....to be honest I thought the boat would have sunk with us never mind the bus.