High in Bolivia...

We stayed in Copacabana for a day, a little town on the shores of Lake Titicaca from where boats bring you to Island of the Sun and Island of the Moon As we just spent two days visiting some islands on the Peruvian side, we chose not to wander around. But we took the opportunity of our stop-over in Copacabana to walk up to the top of Cerro Calvario. The trail follows the Stations of the Cross up to the summit. Once up there pilgrims light candles and burn offerings to ensure that their prayers are heard.

 We then headed off to La Paz. To get there we had to cross Titicaca lake. If there is one thing that we never thought of is that we would have to get off the bus to get to the other shore! No need to say that when we were told that the bus had to cross the lake ‘empty' and the passengers had to cross on a little boat, cameras were taken out of their protective cases quickly! Everybody was speechless and here is the show we attended:

We arrived in La Paz (in one piece) a few hours later. We spent several days there. We still haven't learnt our lesson: we always waste too much time in these big cities! La Paz is not a beautiful city but its setting is impressive. Sited at over 3500m above sea level, the city lies in a narrow canyon. We spent hours walking to find a supermarket before giving up: in La Paz everything is bought in the street! As we've got aisles in supermarkets, they've got a street dedicated for each product!

Bolivian people really like music, there is not a day when we didn't see a parade or heard a band playing. We even attended the presidential guards' parade by chance. Unsurprisingly it is possible to visit the Museum of musical instruments. It features an impressive variety of handmade instruments most of which we had never seen before. We even got the opportunity to play some of them at the end of our visit... it seems that our talent was not appreciated as it should have, we won't be part of the next season of Bolivia's got talent!

You can also find in La Paz the Witches' market where you can buy herbal medicines, talismans and dried lama foetuses (there are part of some rituals apparently!) ... Following picture not for the faint of heart!

We ended up our city tour visiting the Museum of coca. We now know everything about the history and the significance of the coca plant in the Bolivian culture. We also learnt a lot about the famous universal drink Coca-C***! In Bolivia it is possible to find coca leaves to chew at every street corner. We only tried the coca tea...

We erased the visit of the prison from our to-do list... too risky! Why is it so special? There are no guards, the prisoners controlled it and they work to pay for their cells. They often live with their families. Shops, restaurants and even crèches can be found there! Some tourists still try to visit it and we heard some funny stories about it.

At time of writting, we are in the Yungas, in Coroico. We arrived here by the so-called ‘most dangerous road in the world'... You will have to wait for a few days to know more !