From La Paz to Copacabana

We decided to use a very touristic service called Bolivia hop! It’s a bus shuttle that has few stops and runs from Lima to La Paz. It only caters to tourists and propose tours, various stops along the bus rides and an English-speaking guide who should smooth the journey along each stop.

I booked this fancy bus service from La Paz to Cusco because the stops proposed match our itinerary and so does the bus schedule. It’s more expensive than if we were to book the buses by ourselves but on this short stretch, not by so much. It also includes the pick ups from the hostel you stay. Finding taxis and negotiating the prices are something that Alexis doesn’t like to do – this way I preserve his patience and hopefully will make this portion of the journey easier for him.

We walk the few meters that separate our AirBnB from the pick-up point. The bus is on time and the guide comes and pick up the 6 of us waiting there. We are the last ones in, and it’s surprisingly full.

It’s 3 hours bus to Copacabana – the seats are pretty narrow. I feel this bus is less comfortable than what we would have picked at the local bus station. The guide explains the journey, the number of stops and also gives the guidelines for the various scenarios in our bus. Some just do half day tour in Copacabana and continue on to Peru, others go back to la Paz the same day, turns out very few stay a few days in Copacabana like us. 

Everything went smooth. We stopped at the strait that separate the mainland to Copacabana inlet. Crossing with a ferry boat is the fastest way (otherwise it’s a huge detour). And we go off the bus to take small boats, while the bus goes onto a barge and takes 15 to 20min more time than us to cross. 

I had this idea that Copacabana would be like the “holiday” destination for middle class Bolivians, but it’s quite small and underwhelming. Alexis hasn’t been feeling great – his tummy is under the weather – and he has some light flue symptoms. We check in our hotel and decide that the remainder of the afternoon will be about resting. 

About an hour before sunset, we go out and visit the cathedral. Our hostel is right by it. It has almost a Arabian architecture, what I would have expected from south of Spain. It’s quite funny to see domes and archways that feel really Arabian in Bolivia. The inside the cathedral is nothing short of sumptuous. It’s richly decorated and each chapel has a full wall carved wooden structure with the altar inside. It’s one of the nicest churches we have seen in Bolivia so far. What is funny is that at the front door, there are times during the day where the priest is at the entrance to bless cars ! 

While we were visiting, someone was cleaning, dusting and refreshing the plastic flowers of a fairly large Holy Mary statue. He ended up asking Alexis for help to put it back up on the altar. It’s apparently lighter than it looked but very bulky.

We strolled toward the harbor and ended up ordering some hot chocolate at a café while enjoying a quiet time. It’s sunny but we are at 3,800m and the air is crisp and fresh. The little breeze is not pleasant when it blows.

Diner is a nice and simple affair at Jardin del Inca. Unsurprisingly everything is trout here. It’s the invasive species that was introduced in Lake Titicaca and that has eaten away almost all the native fishes. It’s delicious though.