At the Copa... Copacabana....

Finally a good enough connection to post again... this time featuring the sleepy, little town of Copacabana, Bolivia, right on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Well...it's almost always a sleepy town... except of course for the festival week right before we got there. And you could tell! Two days later, it was totally different: neat, clean, and a bit quiet... very nice and still quite a few tourists. It was hard to find actually Bolivian foods on the menu... but it was easy to find full English breakfast, espresso, lasagna, and pizza. The only local food I tried (outside of the popcorn-like snacks in the market) was the trucha... I think that it's trout... and it was very tasty! :)

Our hotel was up the hill a bit and we had a wonderful view of the lake and all it's little paddleboats. A~ so wanted to sail one, but the water was a bit choppy and it was quite chilly. Although it was chilly, it's also quite sunny... and all of us had to get hats to protect ourselves from the sun. Just wish I got mine before the major sunburn on my face!

The lake is absolutely beautiful... and when you are looking at it you can't see the other side at all... looks just like an ocean, with a sandy shore to boot. We climbed up the hill behind the hotel to Calvario, where they have the stations of the cross on your way up to the top of the cliff... a little scary and very exhausting. We made it up right at sunset... and it was quite beautiful! Ironically there are vendors at the top selling trinkets... and I thought my commute was bad?!

Many of the city streets are on the hilly side to say the least... Some are paved with cobblestones or pavers, but many are dirt roads. Here's a photo of the steps at the bottom of the road coming from the hotel. Lots of pedestrians with these roads!

The cathedral was gorgeous, but no pics allowed inside. It's massive and the sidewalk outside has beautiful patterns in it using different shades and sizes of stones. The cathedral is famous for the Virgin of Copacabana which was created by one of the last living indigenous persons. She is the Virgin morena or the dark virgin. For the festival they had a replica outside so that people could stop and take pictures and such with it. I took the cathedral's museum tour where they have many medieval works of art, gifts given to the cathedral, and dresses for the Virgin morena... they have enough handmade, embroiderd gowns to last until the 2040's already.

Little things

Saturday after lots of errands, finally getting A~ to commit to a Halloween costume, finding fabric for said Halloween costume (a mermaid, if you wanted to know)... I got all excited about this cute, child-sized travel cup we saw at Starbucks.

The little birds and books are too adorable (they had stuffed animals just like them for sale - but I resisted!), the the retro colors make the artwork look like something that could have been out when I was little.

Luckily, A~ was excited about it too... so we bought it! She's used it everyday... worth every penny so far! :)

Much love,

erin

Finally the Farm!

I've had all the farm photos from Papa Abel and Mama Florencia's ready to go for over a week. Alas, the dial-up has not been kind to me and it just wouldn't let me upload anything. Finally today, the connection is good... so here goes! Here's A~ her great-grandparents:

We went out to Carcaje a couple of times. They have quite a bit of land there, although only part of it is cultivated with peach trees. They have a wonderful orange tree right in the front and we picked oranges the first time we were there to take back to the city for orange juice. Not the sweetest oranges, but A~ loved the juice! Here's Tio Martin taking a break from all that work.

They also have a couple of lime trees there... gotta be careful with those... they have thorns! A~ would point out which lime to get and we'd have to carefully pluck it for her! :) They also had a locoto bush there... lovely little purple flowers and small, green, spicy peppers. We didn't pick any peppers, but A~ got a few of the flowers.

Every farm has animals, and this is no exception. They have a little cow... Mama Florencia likes her quite a bit as she's a little petite and doesn't eat a lot, but gives them lots of milk. I even got to try some "ambrosia".... fresh milk (still warm even) with a little bit of liqueur added. Yummy, but different! A~ liked checking out the baby calf, but neither she or it were brave enough to make actual contact. They have a few chickens running around, a pair of dogs (both named Rocky), and guinea pigs.

Sergio, his brother, A~ and I went hiking through some of the undeveloped farmland across the road... it was SO beautiful with the clear, blue sky and cacti. I took a lot of pics. Here are the Bolivian fig trees... love their knobby branches.

I'll try to get the next post up sooner... the next installment is Copacabana and Lake Titicaca.

Much love,

erin

On the street...

OK... it's time for your next installment of the Bolivia vacation photos. This time we'll take a look around the city of Cochebamba. Actually Cochebamba technically refers to the entire state and the city is really called Cercado... but if you say your going to Cochebamba, everyone knows that you mean Cercado unless you mention another city name specifically.

The house is right in the middle of downtown. Here is the street. The door to the house is just before the little, round, green and blue sign on the right... just past the parking area where the street narrows.

Here is Tito cleaning up the Jeep out in front of the house.

































I tried to take a number of street photos, but the streets are a bit narrow and with all of the buildings in the center of the city, it's a bit tough to really capture the feel.

Here is a side street near the house.

Here is Calle San Martin... one of the larger streets near the house.

There are many plazas throughout the city. Some are big and well kept, some are smaller, some are in disrepair. I think most neighborhoods have their own plaza. Generally they feature grassy areas protected by little fences, paved walkways, benches for sitting, and, in the nicer plazas, a fountain or other water feature. My favorite was the Plaza Principal which is by the governmental buildings. A~ loved it too... but for the palomas (pidgeons).

Another beautiful area is the Prada. The Prada has lovley, tree-lined streets with little shops and restaurants. It's a popular place to hang out with friends and family.

The Cristo de la Concordia looks down at the city and you can see him clearly from many parts of city. We didn't go up to see it this time around, but here's a shot from the car. Cercado is in the valley and on the outskirts of town the little houses and business kind of creep up on the hills surrounding the city.






















Next time we'll visit the farm in Carcaje!

Much love,
erin