Music and fashion are always the passion at the Copa! Well not quite, Copacabana in Bolivia is a small town sitting on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The main street that runs through the centre is full of tourist orientated cafés, markets selling trinkets and what seems an endless parade of travel agencies selling tickets to Isla del Sol y Luna (Island of the Sun and Moon) and of course bus tickets.

The Lonely Planet told me there are no ATMs here. This was a worry, as after having to pay the $25 to the Peruvian immigration office, that was about a third of the cash I had on me gone. Apparently there are several shops that will do cash advances with a large fee tacked on if you need cash, but thankfully the LP was out of date and I discovered an ATM off the only plaza in town. It was, however, out of service. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in South America is if you’re in smaller town and it’s a Monday, chances are the ATM will be out service as the banks close on Sunday and Monday so the ATMs run out of money.

Generally they get filled back up Monday night, which is usually met with a large line of locals trying to get in first. It’s times like this that you make a little prayer to the god of money and hope that the ATM is back in service the next day. My prayer was answered and joyfully I took out a few hundred Bolivianos to get me by and treated myself to an awesome hamburger and a few beers as a reward.

Copa is a tourist town, there’s no two ways about it. It receives a tonne of tourists
from Puno and the local Bolivians decent on the town later in the year. It still retains a small town charm and is a kind of mecca for the dreadlock folk playing musical instruments. And who can blame them, you have the glorious Titicaca at your doorstep for inspiration and can take a boat out to the Isla del Sol for some quaint chilling in a traditional island village. It’s the Island of the Sun and the Moon, the birthplace of the first Inca brother and sister – Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo – and where the very sun itself was born, which is why tourists come here.

The boat ride out to the island takes what seems forever. It takes 4 hours to get out there on a boat that struggles along with two outboard motors. As a good introduction to Bolivia, the motors were different  horse power, so the driver actually had people sitting on either side of the boat to balance it out. At one point in the trip I was watching as we become increasing closer to the rocky shore of another island. Closer and closer we went, as the other passengers took notice they too looked nervous, glancing back the driver to see whether he had dozed off or was paying attention. When someone whistled at the driver and pointed at the ever growing rocks, the driver nodded assuredly and expertly took the boat between two rocky outcrops with barely a metre on either side of the boat. Impressive, if not a little worrying!

The packed boat pulled into the wharf at the island. My arse was killing me at the stage, and many others had the same sentiment as they jumped ashore and stretched their cramped legs. The island can be visited in three ways. First you can
catch the early afternoon back to Copa, giving you around 3 hours to explore the northern end of the island. This is what I ended up doing; I was planning on doing the second option and walk to the southern end of the island to catch the later afternoon boat back, however the island is 4000 metres above sea level and I wasn’t keen to walk the 4hours to the other end after already spending a breathless 2 hours climbing uphill. The third option is to stay on the island in either one of the many guesthouses or simply pitch a tent on one of the beaches.

The trekking path takes you up the island mountains and through some of the Inca ruins. The path takes you through the old school village of Yumani where the locals go about their day to day business of farming, or in one case with a little girl, herding sheep. She was actually very good at herding, and when a stray sheep wandered off she’d throw rocks at it until it returned to the flock. Most
effective.

The first couple of ruins weren’t much to see, barely a few stones left standing , but the labyrinth is pretty cool. What at first seems to be a small grouping of
houses soon turns out to be a maze as you walk through it and meet dead ends
that only have the odd cow to greet you. After wandering around the labyrinth,
thinking to myself whether it was actually intended to be a labyrinth or something else entirely, I needed to decide whether to return from the wharf I came from or continue on the trek to the other end of the island. While the Isla del Sol is beautiful, I didn’t fancy hiking to the other end so I head back to catch
the 2:30pm boat.

The ride back was fantastic. Gone were the two dozen other passengers, instead there were only two Argentinian couples and a Japanese tourist. We had the whole boat to ourselves and make the best of it by laying down and taking nap. Not long after leaving the island we arrived at Bolivias attempt to cash in on the
popularity of Perus floating islands. In Peru, Los Uros is an authentic reed created floating islands that have been inhabited for some time. These floating islands, about twenty minutes from Copa, are just small platforms floating on barrels with a shop or restaurant.  Not exactly authentic, but kinda amusing to see their valiant attempt to make some tourist money.

After sitting on one of the rock outcrops for a little while taking in the sight of
the lake, being blasted by chilly winds and some attempts at conversion in Spanish, the group of us returned to the boat and soon arrived back in
Copacabana. After dinner I made the decision to leave the next morning for La Paz.

Paying up for the hostal the next morning I couldn’t help but wonder if I was paying premium for it. One of the more difficult things when arriving in a new country is trying to figure out whether you’re being ripped off when buying things, and considering I was in a touristy town I wasn’t sure if 50bs at night was good or bad. Or if 18bs for a 600ml beer was too much (note: it’s 7bs to the Oz dollar).

Turns out the prices were quite good, as I’ll soon discover after arriving in La Paz. And I’ll also find myself being introduced to another of Bolivias well loved traditions – protesting.