Bolivia So Far

So it has been a while since our last post, but we have been busy.  We have made our way through Puno, Copacabana, La Paz, Cochabamba, and have just arrived in Sucre.

In Puno, we took a ferry out to the floating Uros Islands made of reeds on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. We saw the houses of some of the locals and learned how the islands are built and maintained.  some of it felt a little bit hokey and perhaps exploitative of the people but it was still interesting to see.

Puno itself was not a very exciting city so we only stayed a couple of nights before heading to Copacabana in Bolivia.  From here, we visited the Isla del Sol - thought by some to be the birthplace of the Sun and the first Incas.

So close to the clouds you could almost touch them

Copacabana was a fun place to relax and take in the sunny weather.  It was a nice little beach town and a good place to start our travels in Bolivia.  Our only complaint was the army of ants in our hostel - fortunately no bites were found.  After Copacabana, we took a bus/surprise ferry to La Paz.  After driving through El Alto, we began to descend into the city and the views were incredible.

Our favorite snack: Tucumanas on the Prado.  50 cents for an amazing lunch!

Valley of the Moon outside La Paz  (Mom- turns out the reports of muggings were exagerrated )

We found La Paz to be quite interesting, especially the midnight parades outside of our window with ear splitting firecrackers and drums galore.  

After a few nights in la Paz, we made our way to Cochabamba - home of the biggest Jesus statue in South America.  It is slightly taller than the Christ the Redeemer in Rio as that statue was built to a height of 33 m representing the 33 years of Christ´s life. Cochabamba reasoned that he lived for 33 years and a bit so it was necessary to build their own statue just a little bit taller. Another highlight of cochabamba was the 15 cent popsicles and summer weather.

The half order of beef at Casa de Campo in Cochabamba.  It was difficult to walk after...

after 1200 steps to the Jesus statue...turns out bags of water are cheaper than bottles.

Plaza Colon filled with little electric cars for the kids

We will end this post with a note about our night bus to Sucre.  We were upset to find that we would be spending a 10 hour bumpy bus ride on a standard bus with no sleeper seats.  During this bus, Adam discovered a new formula for calculating the standard of living in a country: quality of the roads + how creepy the two guys on the bus behind us are.  

We will be spending a few more days in Sucre before heading to Potosi, Uyuni and the Salt flats.