Our stay at La Cupula was very enjoyable and relaxing. It wouldn't be a stretch to call it the highlight of the trip so far, with the exception Machu Picchu.
The first day, we showed up in the rain, and were shown to our room by an exceptionally welcoming and well put together front desk guy. Our room had hardwood floors, a comfortable bed, a bunch of windows, a balcony, and a view of downtown Copacabana, the beach, and Lake Titicaca.
We had previously called and changed our reservation from 2 nights to 3, but as soon as we saw the room and the rest of the hostel, we changed our reservation to 5 nights. We have plenty of time, almost three weeks to get through Bolivia, and we saw no reason to rush to La Paz when we had such an amazing room here and now. Further, the hostel had ESPN and Fox Sports, so we were guaranteed to have a spot to watch the Superbowl. This put our stay through Feb 3, so we would be in Copacabana for "La Virgen de la Candelaria" festival, which was recommended in our guide book.
We spent our first two days in Copacabana walking around, shopping for food at the market, and researching the best deal for the tours to Isla del Sol. We decided on an agency that told us we would spend all day going to the northern and southern parts of Isla del Sol, as well as Isla de la Luna for only a bit more than only going to the southern end of Isla del Sol. On the third day, we woke up around 7am and walked down to the docks to board the boat.
The boats looked a lot like the boats in Puno, but instead of having powerful inboard engines, they are all equipped with low-horsepower outboard Yamaha motors. This made them much slower than the boats in Puno, and they also gave off a strong smell of gas into the cabin. These two elements made for a long and headache-filled morning through otherwise beautiful scenery. Once the clouds burned off we went up to the roof, where the gas fumes couldn't get to us. :-)
Upon arriving at the northern part of Isla del Sol, we were greeted by a park guide who informed us of a per-person fee to get off the boat... This is when I started getting pissed off. The amount of money was only about $2 each, so we paid it, but the fact that we hadn't been informed of this beforehand really put me in a sour mood. I began plotting in Spanish how I would confront the woman who sold us the tour, and insist that we be reimbursed.
The northern part of the island was the most beautiful we visited. We quickly abandoned the guide and set off to see the view points seperate from the pack we arrived with. We even saw some ruins, though nothing we have seen since Machu Pichhu has been nearly as impressive:
At the remainder of the stops during the day, we were again greeted by someone asking us to pay a fee. At Isla de la Luna, we refused to pay and opted to sit on the beach and play cards. After about 20 minutes our boat-mates came back down with some food they had purchased, and we felt exceptionally smart for having avoided paying to have the option to buy food. It didn't sound like we missed much.
Then when we went to the southern part of Isla del Sol, we tried to show we had already paid at the northern part (the northern guide had told us to show our ticket so we wouldn't have to pay again), but this guy said no, pay again. At this point I became enraged, and essentially told the guy we weren't paying and to go **** himself. We then skipped the last stop, which looked like a really cool ruin on a bluff above the lake, because some people needed to catch a bus... Once we arrived back in Copacabana we went straight to the woman who sold us the tickets and had a long argument about a full refund. We were eventually refunded about 1/3rd of the price, but not before I gave her the most awful looks I could while Marcela argued like a reasonable and sensible adult. I felt bad for letting these small fees ruin my day, but that stupid booking agent really should have informed us. (All fees were covered when we went to islands from Puno.)
The next morning, we had breakfast in the restaurant at La Cupula. It was fairly basic, but came with a banana smoothie, which made Marcela happy because it tasted like those from her childhood:
That afternoon, we hiked to the view point above Copacabana called "Cerro Calvario". It was a steep hike similar to the stone stairs at Machu Picchu, but it was worth it once we reached the top:
Up top, since it was the day leading up to the festival, everyone was drinking beers, spraying beer into the air, throwing firecrackers off the cliff, and gathering with friends and family. There were many people also burning incense and saying prayers, but interestingly even these people had beers which they were spraying everywhere. We learned a spray to the sky gives thanks to Mother Sky, while a spray toward the ground gives thanks to Mother Earth. The toy trucks and miniture apartment complexes that were for sale, when given as a gift, bring good luck and will supposedly enable that person to acquire the full size object within the coming year.
That night as we were making dinner in the beautiful blue/white greek-esk kitchen at La Cupula, we started hearing fireworks. We are used to hearing them go off from Cusco and from earlier in the week in Copacabana, but normally they are just explosion fireworks which have no colorful display. These however, were quite magnificent and expensive looking, so once we finished our meal, we ventured into the town to see what was going on:
A lot of the pictures I took during that night were blurry becuse it was raining heavily.
The next morning, the drinking and dancing continued. It seemed to us that they took a break between 4am and 6am, and then continued; and you could see it in the morning drunkeness of the majority of the festival participants.
Later that day, we retreated to the comfort of the La Cupula common room, made some pizza, and watched the Seahawks destroy the Broncos in the Superbowl. It was a fabulous romping, and I was so happy to be able to watch. I was more than a little homesick though.
Slowly, a fairly large group of Americans congregated to watch the game, drawn by our loud yelling!
The following morning, we went to La Paz.
Cheers to you all and to Copacabana! We had a great time, and recommend it to anyone coming through. La Cupula was great also!
So luck to feed the lhamas!!! hahha
ReplyDeleteenjoy the trip!