Christmas in Bolivia

Christmas in Bolivia was very difficult for me...I knew it would be, but with my work, I was not able to take more time off in January, so had to make the choice....and I can tell you this much...I will not be doing it again. Christmas is one of my most favorite times of year, and I LOVE being with my husband and family around that time. We have so many lovely traditions....I love watching our usual Christmas movies, sipping Champagne and OJay as we linger over gifts and giggles by a roaring fire...Ivan, Mom and Gran sneaking chocolates and goodies, then heading to the kitchen to help mom create a Christmas Masterpiece.

This year, I think I cried all day. We called home, and although it was wonderful to hear the family on the other end, I was heartbroken not to be there. We had returned to La Paz, which was relatively quiet that day....dirty and had a hollow, lonely feeling. That said, our amazing guide Solly organized a lovely Christmas dinner for those left in the group. We had parted ways that morning and this was the last day of the GA tour, so there were only 5 of us left. We went to The Plaza, which was a lovely 5 star hotel for dinner. The view was lovely as was the food...again we cracked a bottle of bubbles and we did have a nice time....but I simply couldn´t escape the feeling of a heavy heart.....if I am honest...it is still with me today.

The next morning we were up bright and early to hop on a 3hr bus ride to Copacabana...we had heard this was a lovely waterside resort type town. We met a lovely Aussie couple on the bus, which made the time fly by. Unfortunately it was pouring rain when we arrived...and our hotel La Cupula..which was apparently the ¨nicest´ there was FREEZING cold. It was a pleasant little place, very clean and...backpacker friendly....but I have realized the standards of these backpacker folks are a LOT lower than mine! We did have a lovely dinner that evening at the cute little restaurant with the Aussie couple...feasting on the local specality of Trout from Lake Titicaca and some lovely wine.

That night was like pure torture to me.....I was freezing cold and needed to have a shower and wash my hair....lucky we had hot water....my wonderful hubby filled some hot water bottles up with boiling water and put them under the covers, as I leapt out of the warm shower and into the bed...lucky my man has the body heat of a furnace and kept me warm all night.

I would say skip Copacabana...its kind of dumpy, and boring....take the rikety ferry over to the Isle del Sol. We did the 4 hr hike from the North to the South, which I was not very happy about, as we only had 4.5 hrs to do it in and I do NOT like to hike on a timeline...I am slow...pokey as my dad and Ivan would say....BUT the hike was beautiful...Lake Titicaca is gorgeous and the scenery was spectacular. As we came to the end of our hike on the South end we passed a bunch of lovely little hotels and restaurants on a cliff above the waters edge....we wished we would have stayed over there....it was quiet and peaceful and somehow seemed a lot cleaner...but alas, our ferry was picking us up and heading back to Copacabana to enjoy a tremendous cheese fondu at the hotel restaurant once again...it was divine!

While we were at the hostal, Ivan decided to look in one of the guide books to see about booking a beautiful hotel at our next destination which was to be Arequipa Peru.