Copacabana (the original one) is located at the Bolivian shore of the famous lake  Titicaca. It’s a pretty quite place inhabited by quite some hippies along with the indigenous people. It’s popular with any kind of tourist, so you find quite a choice of cafés, restaurants and people trying to sell you trips to the close by islands or bus tickets.

People here basically live of selling you (the gringo) something.

But what an tiny idyllic place, popular with tourists and locals.

While in Copacabana a trip to take is Isla del sol or the place where the sun god was born.
Boats to the island leave very day at 8:30 and 13:30 and you can just go down to the shore and buy a ticket for 3 US$. The boats look actually quite nice from far but turn out to be white colored wood with an attached diesel motor and get helplessly overloaded with tourist. When I first feared drowning due to a break down of the boat this fear was shortly after replaced by the fear of dying of carbon monoxid poisoning. It started raining so windows were closed and all the motor fumes accumulated in the inside of the wooden frame. However I seemed to be the only one concerned about that.

The boat was just a little packed with people and the fact that one motor was broken did not accelerated our journey.

After the total of three hours (not two as promised) we arrived in Challapampa at the nord end of the island. From here we headed to the famous Inca ruins (not without paying 10 BOV = 1.5US$ entrance fee) that seemed to us a bit to good looking to be thousands of years old, but who are we to judge. From the ruins most tourists including us head south to Yumami, but since we planned to stay there overnight we had all the time and the wide view over the lake, Bolivia and Peru almost to our selfs.

According to the ants, it must be a quite popular place. We stayed behind and had therefore all the attractions to ourself later.

I guess we and our carrots were the bigger attractions to the natives than the Inca ruins.

Looking nice, but 500 years old?

The landscape and the view over lake Titicaca definitely were the bigger attraction to us.

We also came along some sacrifice stones …

… and couldn’t resist. But no worries Tommy is just acting …

He was more in danger, when I tried to take a picture of him and his relatives.

Not far from Yumami we were hooked by a ten year old and his alpaca who sold us two his aunt, who owned a hostal in Yumami. It was quite simple but for 8$ per night we didn’t complained (later we found out that this is the average price and we could have gotten a better room). In a tiny restaurant in the middle of the eucalyptus forest we had our first candlelight dinner in South America and since the husband of the chief had a meeting until 8 pm we had a lot of time to enjoy the atmosphere (waited 2h for our food, but it was definitely worth it).

The little muggers and their Alpaca that hooked us to their aunts „hostel“. They even asked me for a tip later. Wonder what they raise their kids to here. 🙂

Yumami, spreading from the hill to the waterfront including some a famous Inca staircase and many donkeys which carry the beer for the tourists up the mountain.

Finally, steamed trout (a specialty from lake Titicaca though imported to the lake from Canada) and Pizza!

The next day we chose the rout via all the small villages on the island and experienced a little village life, with all the cute and not so cute animals and all their leftovers on the path. Tom helped a old lady down the hill and a nice lama got the great idea to spit on me to Toms great amusement (didn’t even got a picture of it).

It’s potatoes and not just polystyrene balls in this backpack prototype.

This cute one didn’t spit on me

We left Copacabana Easter Friday, when it got really funny because lots of people from all over Bolivia pilgrim here. Luckily camping is allowed in Bolivia where it’s possible, so people just slept on the central plaza :).

Should have know that and save the money for the hostal :).

After we spend two more nights in Sucre (didn’t wanted to miss out on quinoa cake and another round of squallyball) we took a morning bus to LaPaz. Actually we wanted to take an overnight bus but because of the election all over Bolivia on Sunday absolutely nothing was going to work from 0:00. They stop selling alcohol already on Thursday, every kind of traffic is prohibited except bikes, and absolutely all shops are closed. So we arrived in the biggest city of Bolivia which was paralyzed.

Just one day later these street was blocked with cars and busses.

On Sunday we literally walked over streets of LaPaz following the constant ascent of the altiplano surrounding LaPaz taking out our breaths but giving an amazing view over the hundreds of thousands red brick houses forming the city. And over and over again somebody would greet us with a friendly „buenos tardes“, a kindness being new to us in Bolivia.

If you live here and don’t have a car (most don’t) you don’t need to go to the gym.

The red bricks tower over the higher houses of city core on their hill sides.

The day of the election was a holiday for most people but the kids really got some fun out of the empty streets, because not one is flat.

In the afternoon just aiming for some food we ended up in a cafe with Kim and Ben where we spontaneously booked the adventure for the next day: a downhill ride on mountain bikes over the formerly deathliest road in the world.

Still smiling (before we got on the bikes).

The day started with a simply breakfast before a guide and a driver loaded the four of us into a Minibus and driving us up to 4700 m to the starting point. There we were dressed as warriors and put on full suspension bikes and off we went racing down the paved road with 40-50 km/h

This downhill bikes seemed a little overkill for the paved road we started on, until we got to our real destination.

As soon as I got used to that we were loaded again in the Minivan and driven to the road that really was the death road. This was the real challenge being hardly broad enough for a car, of rough gravel and with a very very steep cliff to the left side we were told to drive close to it all the time so passing cars had less trouble!!! Unfortunately (or not because you couldn’t make out the steepness of the cliff) the day was very foggy blocking the view on the incredible Bolivian landscape. To sad  also because we were passing several climate zones on our 3000 m altitude race down.

I am not sure it was bad, that I could see, where this cliff ended.

The death road kind of looks cute snuggling its way around the hill side until you recall that once upon a time trucks were using due to the lack of alternatives (for an impression watch TopGears Bolivia special).

On the finish line we were brought to a „hotel“ (rather a falling apart barack, but who really cares) with a swimming pool and lunch. Which was okay but while hanging out we were eaten by sun flies and my whole body was itching the next day. The trip was pretty fun but I still think 80$ is a bit of a rip off considering average Bolivian prices.

First when the fog cleared the beauty of this country came into it’s own.

To finish off our visit to LaPaz Tom needed a ride with the newly build cable car (Evo paid the Swiss company Doppelmayer 300 mil. US$ for 7 lines.Very modern, clean, shiny and so not typical for Bolivia). They make traveling to the high ends of LaPaz really effortless and would make a good way to get a great view over the city, if the inhabitants wouldn’t just build houses into the view.

The very shiny and still rather cheap cable car makes the trip into the hillsides of LaPaz effortless (but of course it’s shut down on the election day).

What a view over the LaPaz, if there wouldn’t be this buildings everywhere. Bolivia still has to work on its touristic infrastructure.

The alarm went off at 5:45 am and Tom just asked whether I want to take the bus. Me and my bad stomach readily agreed to that even though we would miss the scenic train ride to Potosi (something Tom couldn’t forget about so we were actually taking the train back three days later).Three more hours of sleep and three hours in a creepy bus later we arrived in the highest city in the world at 4090 m and felt surprisingly good even though it was quite cold up here (our room had a TV! but no radiator so we slept in long underwear and with three blankets.).

Were ever you are in Potosi the towering Cerro Rico is watching over you.

Once upon a time Potosi also was the richest city in the world though to the mountain towering over the city. Cerro Potosi general known as Cerro Rico (rich mountain) contained huge amounts if silver that was extracted by the hard labour of the indigenous people to be shipped away by the Spanish. Nowadays the mountain reminds if a Swiss cheese with its hundred of mines, but still 10.000 Bolivians still mine the mountain for tin and seldom earths under conditions that did not changed much in the last 400 years.

All the safety equipment you get is some extra layer of cloths, rubber boots and a helmet and that is far more than the miners have.

We decided to take a tour to visit the mines which was absolutely outside my comfort zone. Equipped with a thin layer of fabric, rubber boots, a dust mask and a helmet with lamps we more crawled through the 1 m high tunnels deep in the mountain knowing that an explosion could make a tunnel collapse and you are surrounded by dust causing lung diseases and toxic metals like arsenic.

There is not much silver left in Cerro Rico and most of it ended up somewhere in Spain.

Also the visit to the refining plant didn’t attested of many safety rules for workers in Bolivia. You better keep your distance to this machine.

And than equipped with our presents for the miners (juice, coca leaves and writing pads for their kids) we more crawled then walked through the centuries old mines.

The toxic stalactites are just a few cm above you head (if you bend down).

We crawled for about 2 exhausting hours visiting the miners that work there in average 12h, chewing coca leaves to not feel the hunger while drilling holes for explosives, carrying 20kg of stones in the back up the ladders between different levels our pushing wagons weighing tons out of the mountain. Most of them die in their fourties of lung diseases. We also paid a visit to the miners devil the Tio, which owns the erze. The miners regularly bring sacrificial offerings to ask for better ore quality and protection.

The guys in the back unloading the 20 kg heavy bags of scraps are supposed to be only 16 years old (still look younger). The guide told us kids start working in the mines when they are about 8 years old. Even though its forbidden, they need the money.

„El Tio“. God rules on earth, but below earth it’s the devil you need to keep an eye on. Anyway most miners more see El Tio as god below earth, who you have to respect. That’s why he is wearing rubber boots as the miners. Oh and of course the little insulting feature is an appeal for fertility for the miners.

Miners offer coca leaves, cigaretts and alcohol to El Tio. And here something for the food chemists. They offer and drink 96% alcohol with good taste („buen gusto“). One liter of this cost 10 BOV, one liter of beer 20 BOV!

We also tried this stuff. It’s actually strong but tasteless.

The guy here is drilling a hole for the explosives by hand (he can’t afford a drilling machine). The lump in his cheek is not from any disease but a bunch of coca leaves.

Somehow I was very happy, when we got out of the mountain again.

If somebody wants to know more, watch the movie „the devil’s miners“ about the 14 year old Basilo working in the mines. The movie is 10 years old and we were wondering what became of the boy. However we got three very different versions. Bertha from our homestay said he is indeed a teacher having three kids, Wikipedia says he is studying and partly still works in the mines and our Tour guide said he never worked in the mines and nowadays is a alcoholic working as a driver in Potosi? Officially children labor is not allowed, but nobody obeys the rules and kids as young as 8 years work down there. I also asked our guide whether conditions change with the new president but he said it only got worse and most miners would like to put a bar of dynamite into the presidents arse.

Have a close look on the three guys. This wagons are probably centuries old and weigh tons.

The next day we tried to climb the Cerro Rico, which was a quite different experience to hike between rubbish, rubble from the mines, mine entrances, trucks and miners, but the view over Potosi was exceptional.

Are green flamingo over viewing the Altiplano around Potosi.

The paths that we used were not any kind of leftovers but are used everyday by the people how can’t afford to live in the city and therefore live in little huts on the mountain.

And than the day came to take the „train“ back to Sucre. A bus on tracks! You can’t call Bolivians not to be creative.

This is the funniest train I have ever seen, but really comfy.

The ride (with thrilling 40km/h) was really entertaining. First we had to wait until the market cleared from the tracks in Potosi, than several obstacles like wheelbarrows and pigs, people getting of at nowhere, people asking the driver to take a bag of potatoes to relatives slowed down our journey and than again and again we were struck by the beauty of the green mountains of the altiplano sprinkled with tiny Bolivian farms. This trip really gives you a look on the life in the Bolivian countryside. Oh but I forgot to mention you shouldn’t be afraid of heights because the train is constantly driving along steep cliffs without any obvious security vorkehrungen.

The „train“ has a fixed schedule but people selling potatoes were still surprised that it passes exactly through the marketplace (the market took place on the tracks).

But we were not the only ones being excite about the journey. It’s the only way to get to the mountain villages.

I spend the total of 6 h looking out of the window, only the last 1 h I couldn’t resist sleep anymore.