Copacabana, Bolivia 🇧🇴

The boys are keen to join me as I am going to a baptism at the Basilica of Our Lady Copacabana.  This isn’t a regular baptism but one for motor vehicles. The locals bring new vehicles to the basilica, creating a line outside ready for the priest to bless each one. The vehicles are sparkly clean with flowers displayed colourfully around the front, and a garish top hat to finish the look. The families spray beer or wine over the cars and pose for pictures with the priest. It is quite fun to watch, and there are about 30 cars to bless which I thought a lot for such a small community.

The boys are hungry as they missed breakfast so we sit on a sun terrace enjoying food and drinks. They are heading to Puno at 1pm, so I bid farewell before heading back to my reading routine. I also manage to speak to Mum & Dad and Justin who are all doing well, not a lot of gossip. A chilled afternoon with a couple of glasses of wine on the balcony.

This evening I decide to climb Cerro Calvario for sunset. This is a small rocky hill with a sharp 220m ascent (reaching 4,040m at summit) behind the hotel. I set off with vigour but pretty quickly I am out of breath. I don’t think the wine helped and by the time I reached the top 40 minutes later I had stopped over 20 times with dizziness.  

It is beautiful from the top and the line of small monuments representing the 14 Stations of the Cross make a nice foreground to the sunset. I don’t dawdle on the way down as I don’t want to be walking in the dark. On the way back is a nice restaurant which has a cosy log burner and great food. Needless to say I stuck to water with my meal.