We took a waiting minibus from the border to the nearest town called Copacabana - fortunately Barry Manilow was nowhere to be found! We found a nice little hostel just off the main plaza which set us back about 3 quid a night and planned to take a boat out to the supposed birthplace of the Inca empire, Isla de Sol (Island of the Sun), the following morning. The boat dropped us at the north end and we walked the length of the island down to the south where we were picked up again, 3 hours later. It is quite an attractive island varying from barren volcanic landscape in the north to green fields and quaint villages in the south. This island is much more geared for tourism than the Islands on the Peruvian side of the lake, with plenty of restaurants and hostels dotted about. To the east you have a clear view of the snow capped mountains of the Bolivian Cordillera Real, made to look considerably closer then they actual are by the high altitude thin air and crystal clear blue cloudless skies.
The following day we took a bus to the Bolivian Capital, la Paz, completing our trilogy of the 3 highest capital cities in the world (Bogota, Quito and La Paz), with the El Alto area of the city over 4000m above sea level and the city centre set in a huge canyon at a mear 3600m. The La Paz city limits stretch far and wide within & up the walls of the canyon, an impressive site by either night or day.
Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America and suffers from the greatest level of political instability - with something like 100 different presidents over the last 150 years, many of which have been overthrown my military coups. With this in mind we were expecting to find Bolivia considerably less expensive than neighbouring Peru but this was not to be the case, in La Paz at least, where they have got wise to the prices they can get away with charging tourists.
Coming from the tranquility of Lake Titicaca, the chaotic nature of La Paz hits you hard, probably the craziest, most manic city we have been to! The locals stalls line the pavements using every available inch as a market place, making walking on them impossible - so you have to take your chances walking in the roads, avoiding the mass of taxis and smoke churning buses that weave their way throught the streets. All the chaos is actually quite endearing and there is a real energy and vibrancy to the place. It is not on any level 'European' in its feel unlike some of the other cities in South America we have been too, and there is little refinement and few luxuries to be found, though there are a few nice cafes, bars and restaurants.
Our hotel was right in the middle of the market district, which includes a ´witches market´where you can buy any number of potions and lotions to cure all manner of ailments including those of the heart, and each stall selling an array of llama foetuses known to drive away evil spirits if you bury one in the grounds of your home. Providing all these llama foetuses does not involve any cruelty though, as apparently each llama always gives birth to 2 baby llama but one is always still born... nothing goes to waste in this place!
Our hotel was right in the middle of the market district, which includes a ´witches market´where you can buy any number of potions and lotions to cure all manner of ailments including those of the heart, and each stall selling an array of llama foetuses known to drive away evil spirits if you bury one in the grounds of your home. Providing all these llama foetuses does not involve any cruelty though, as apparently each llama always gives birth to 2 baby llama but one is always still born... nothing goes to waste in this place!Pirate CD´s and DVD´s are widely available in all Latin American towns and cities, although Bolivia takes this to another level with actual shops trading in them.... we stocked up on a few and thought we would give them a go and were surprised by the excellent quality - and they were even in English like they told us they would be.
Having missed out on the Mexican wrestling while we were in Mexico City due to the swine flu epidemic bring the city to it's knees, we were pleased to discover that Bolivia has it's own version. 
So we got ourselves some tickets & took a bus along to what was a cross between a village hall & a run down sports hall, with the majority of one end of the building completely missing & 'blocked off' with an ill fitting piece of tarpauling. La Paz gets down below zero in the evenings this time of year, so it made for quite a chilly experience - but a very funny one at that. The funniest parts being provided by a number of women who were dotted around the audience, all decked out in their full indigenous outtfits, sitting there knitting or something else unassuming, and at various intervals they would jump up out of the audience & get in the ring & start beating the hell out of each other - looking far more aggressive than the men as they strangled each other by their pony tails & threw each other around the ring. Obviously it is all choreographed to some extent, but some of the moves must actually hurt...either that or they are really good actors...Checking out the La Paz nightlife we hit a few bars that had been recommended - the first of which was like a really bad Yate's pub from back home, bad music being played way too loud with sticky carpets & hidiously drunk people all over. Moving swiftly on from there we went to a bar that had an industrial feel, & was set out like something out of Nightmare on Elm Street, complete with various painful looking implements hanging from the walls & ceiling & a blow torch constantly burning at the bar ready for any requests for flaming sambuckas or unwanted hair-do's... The final bar we went to had a U2 tribute band on - U2 being Leanne's least favourite band & with her being somewhat drunk by this stage of the evening, she morphed into Jonny & started heckling the band between each song, letting them know exactly what she thought of U2. Shortly after which we made our excuses & left...
La Paz has a couple of streets where there are a whole host of musical instrument workshops producing handmade instruments. We were in the market for a couple of Charrango's - an Andean instrument like a tiny guitar but with 10 strings & different tunings, though managed to get a bit side tracked by a handmade cedar wood acoustic guitar that caught my eye for all of about £30...naturally I couldn't resist & with that added yet another cumbersome item to our 'to send home' pile. In the post office the following day we were pleasantly surprised to find that it cost less than £20 to send the guitar home, & even more pleasantly surprised to find out it actually made it home in about 3 weeks. All I need now is for it to actually be in one piece...
Taking a short leave of city life, we headed out of La Paz to the mountain village of Sorata for a few days. Leanne at this point decided she still had some unfinished business to attend to back in Cusco, Peru, so we went our seperate ways again, Claire & I heading onto Sorata & Leanne taking a bus back up the way we had just came to meet up with the Irish again in Cusco. We did say that Cusco was the sort of place you easily spend a lot of time in...The locals of Sorata claim that this was the original location of the Garden of Eden - whilst there's no denying it's a very beautiful place, I think this claim might be stretching it some what. Claire & I went on a really nice 1 day hike out to some caves & back along the side of a river canyon. However, what was a real shame to see en route was the Bolivian version of waste disposal - which due to the fact there is no recycling here or very few actual designated rubbish tips, the government truck that had just collected all the towns rubbish was literally tipping the contents of it's load off the side of the mountain road down the side of an otherwise beautiful valley & into the river below. 
Leaving Sorata we headed back through La Paz for another night, attempting to make a visit to the open prison of San Pedro - as made famous in the book 'Marching Powder' - which was once open to tourists for visits, though now has been completely closed off in this respect by the authorities. There are no guards on the inside of the prison & prisoners have to buy their own cells, the most well off prisoners living in appartment style confinement, the poorest of which live in the worst squallor imaginable. Due to the fact that many of the families of the prisoners have no means of income whilst their bread winners are locked up, many families actually live in the prison with the convicts - including children who leave the prison daily to attend school. So we said goodbye to the mayhem of La Paz & made our way south.
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