La Paz

We booked tickets on a "tourist bus" from Copacabana. The bus was a basic coach but it had the advantage of dropping off passengers in the historic centre of La Paz rather than the scary (and scary sounding) cemetery district.

Copacabana sits on an isthmus that juts out into Lake Titicaca. The neck of the isthmus is cut by the Peruvian border. Consequently for the bus to stay in Bolivia on its trip to La Paz, it has to cross a narrow section of the lake that joins the larger (and mainly Peruvian) North section of the lake with a smaller Southern section.

So after a windy route through the hills around Copacabana, we reached a small town and disembarked. The bus passengers were to travel by little boats over to the other side while the bus would go over by barge. That nobody trusted the two to go together didn't inspire confidence!

For a few Bolivianos (1Boliviano =  20 cents) we caught a swift but small and rickety boat across with locals and other passengers. Our journey was quicker than the bus's, so we had a toilet break, a snack and watched the stray dogs tussle in the town square.

Back on the bus we saw more of Bolivia's half-built nature. The route to La Paz will be a big broad highway but that was still under construction. So the bus would weave off semi-finished sections and unto dirt roads running along side.

The immediate landscape was flat, breaking into stony hills with snow capped mountains in the distance. As we travelled on more half complete buildings appeared at the side of the road. These grew in density as we entered the outer sprawl of El Alto, the expanding second city of La Paz.

Through El Alto the roads would return to dirt tracks amid occupied but incomplete buildings. Eventually this shifted to proper roads and more established buildings. Then proper highway which swept round in an arc to reveal the steep valley over which La Paz sprawls across the slopes.

After navigating narrow streets the bus dropped us a short walk to our hotel