Hello from Copacabana

And no, I haven't seen Barry Manilow (or Lola for that matter). Copacabana is a sweet little town on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca. It's a spiritual center and a vacation mecca for Bolivians (and backpacking gringos too). I have a place right on the lake with a lovely view and a private bathroom for about $14. Sweet! I just arrived in town at 3pm today, and tomorrow I'll leave at 8am to go to the Isla del Sol (island of the sun). I don't expect to have much connectivity with the world while I'm there, and Sunday will be in transit, so it may be Monday before I blog again - just warning y'all so nobody goes worrying or anything...

Yesterday was quite a day. I woke up suffering a bit with altitude (just the headache, but bletch, who needs it?). It was 11am before I really got on the road, which made the rest of the day a bit comical. I took a cab to meet a collectivo, which took me to the site of Tiwanaku.

A side note about collectivos. Collectivos are Toyota vans, the size of a VW Bus, which are miracles of engineering and sheer will. They usually hold about 5 bench seats, in addition to the front row (no they're not longer than your standard bus). At 5'4", I max out the femur length that can fit between one seat and another. Yesterday our collectivo had 22 people in it on the way to Tiwanaku. On the return trip, we only had 11, much to the consternation of the driver, who honked his horn all the way down the highway hoping for a field worker who wanted a ride. When he actually found one, we drove off the highway, across a culvert, and through a field to meet the passenger. All this for about $1.50 per person! The ride is about 2 hours long, give or take, allowing for lots of stops to gather more and more passengers.

Okay, back to Tiwanaku. By the time I arrived, I had about 4 hours to see and photograph anything of interest at the site (which is actually two sites about a km apart) and the museum, and to find the sacred spring which is another .5 km from one of the sites and unmarked, so that I could take a water sample. The amazing thing is, I got it all done, well pretty much, there was a bit of prioritizing...

To find the spring, I asked the site guard for directions. He pointed me across a field and said "see where there are five cows over there and the fourth is black? It's just past that." Fabulous. So, using those directions and my compass and John Janusek's wonderful book about the Tiwanaku which describes the spring, I set out and actually found it. If it weren't for the photo in the Janusek book, I'd have never recognized it. It's not marked and the water is very low and mucky. I took my sample anyway...it wasn't ideal, but how could I exclude the sacred spring at the cultural center????

After this, I zipped over to the museum, did a quick run through. Asked the guard if the sign saying no photos REALLY meant no photos, and he said I could take a few if nobody saw me and I bought him a coke. FABULOUS! So, we made a deal, and I bought him a very large Coca-cola. Hopefully the photos will come out well! There were some awesome cranial modifications.

I zipped through the site, took lots of pictures, and got back to the bus stop about 1 minute before the last bus of the day came through to take me back to La Paz. Whew! It would have made some people I know a little crazy - you know I like to cut it close!

Back in La Paz, I got news that a wild fire is very near my house near Chico, CA. There are evacuations going on. Very scary, and hard to be far away with that sort of thing going on. My very wonderful husband reminded me that I'm safe and he's safe, and the house is just full of things - not what really matters. So, not to worry. As of this morning, it looks like the fire is holding off and the threat is not imminent at least.

But then, later in the evening, true calamity befell me. What's worse for a traveller than hearing that their house may burn down......losing their Lonely Planet guide! Yes, my Lonely Planet Bolivia has gone missing, and I was very distraught. I mean, it has all the information, the maps, my reservations, the location of the sacred spring on the Isla del Sol! Disaster! I looked everywhere, had the hotel call the restaurant I ate at the night before, no luck. But, there's a rainbow at the end of my story. This morning, while checking out, I spotted some other travellers with a LP in English and asked if I could borrow it, just for a minute. They said, we're on our way to Chile, you can have it. HURRAY! Balance is restored to my universe.

And that's probably all I should say for now. Sorry to be so longwinded. Blame the beer I drank while watching the sunset over Lake Titicaca (it just seemed to be the right thing to do).

: )

Karen