Copacabana, Bolivia: 17th Feb 10

Today we crossed the border into Bolivia. We’ve really enjoyed Peru, it’s been a blast. Bolivia will be different as it’s the poorest country on the continent and Peru is one of the richest.

At mid-day we reached the village of Copacabana (not to be confused with the famous beach in Rio). The village sits between beautiful hills on a lovely bay on the banks of Lake Titicaca.

Although much of the village itself is very scruffy – suffering the familiar scourge of half-finished buildings, it does have its charms and is blessed with a stunning colonial style cathedral. All of the women wear traditional dress but it differs slightly from Peru and Ecuador – here they all wear bowler hats!

We’re staying in a great guest house with amazing views from our room over the bay and across the lake to the horizon. The local women use the gardens for grazing their herds of sheep.


We had lunch on the lakeside of locally caught fish (aka Titi-trout) which was delicious and then wandered up to have a look at the cathedral – only to be confronted with a most bizarre sight! It transpires that the cathedral is famous around Bolivia as the home of ‘vehicle blessings’. So at 9am and 2.30pm every day people travel from all over the country to have their new vehicles blessed. Not just cars, but vans, trucks , tractors and JCB diggers!


They all park up outside the cathedral and deck out their vehicles with garlands of flowers and streamers. Then the owners, some of whom bring instruments such as drums and trumpets start playing music and dancing in circles around the square, covering themselves in streamers as they go.

On one side of the square we saw a monk blessing a huge pile of potatoes and beans on the floor, which the hungry travelers then tucked into!

At 2.30 the blessings start – a lone monk (strangely wearing a baseball cap!) comes up to each vehicle, says a few prayers and circles it, splashing holy water. At the same time the owners let off very loud fire crackers. Then a couple of local women walk around the vehicle throwing petals – and finally the owner christens the vehicle with bottles of champagne and beer.

Matt and I watched the festivities for ages, mesmerized by the crazy happenings – we think we’re going to like Bolivia!