Day 14 A lake on top of the world

Until a few weeks ago we could not even pronounce Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. We had imagined that crossing this lake would be magnificent but we were blown away by what we saw. For over 9 hours we traversed the lake in a hydrofoil with 20 other people. Along the way we visited the original Copacabana in Bolivia, which redefined syncretism between Catholic and Animist religions with blessing of cars with beer and a shameful display of the prosperity gospel. We visited a small island with ruins of a temple nearly 2000 years old. We lunched on a larger island with a view across the lake to snow-capped mountains peaking at 6500metres with the only significant vegetation being Australian gum trees. We visited a community who lived on floating reed islands, a practice that developed thousands of years ago to escape the terrors of war.

After all that, the day ended with a 2-hour mini bus ride to La Paz the highest city in the world at 4000 metres. This journey through rural poverty and exploding urban indigenous slums was a reminder that a few road rules and police may help reduce the danger of road travel a lot more than blessing the cars with beer.

We arrived last night in La Paz delighted to have arrived in Bolivia and hopeful that few other days on this journey will be such an overload to the senses.