The amazingness of Copacabana!!

The border crossing from Peru to Bolivia deserves a separate entry in itself as it was so crazy! We got a 6 hour bus ride to Puno and then a little local bus to the border, however they´d under-estimated our journey so we ended up arriving 30 minutes before the border was due to close. As the local bus didn´t drop us right to the border but instead in the middle of nowhere we had to make our way passed a very insistent taxi driver and into a collectivo which drove painfully slowly, not to the border, but to the dodgey border town. I checked my clock and was pretty sure the border would have closed but a police man told us that if we caught a taxi from the next square, we could still make it. So through the town we ran with our extremely heavy backpacks and jumped into a taxi... luckily the border was still open and we made it through, however as we left the border shut right behind us. We got into another taxi to Copacabana when suddenly the taxi driver pulled over on the side of the road and opened the boot and in jumped a woman. She smiled at me and said 'hola´as she snuggled up against our big backpacks. It was really wierd, it felt like she was some kind of hostage... but she seemed happy enough.

After checking into a cheapy hostel and eating we came across a bolivian folk band playing in the square so went to watch. It turned out that we´d stumbled across a street party in order to celebrate the day of the police and the day of the virgin of copacabana. Fireworks were randomly let off throughout the evening, the sparks showering the audience. An old man walked amonst the crowd with a big steel pot filled with té con té (a hot drink of tea, sugar cane and strong alchole). Another man was handing everyone coco leaves to chew on and then later in the night someone came round handing us free sandwidches too! we ended up dancing with a massive group of guys from La Paz who were lots of fun. Part way through the night there would be sketches of how the police helped and what they did and then there would be more live music. To end the night was an even bigger display of fireworks.

The following morning there was a procession for the police and the virgin of Copacabana and as it turned out, the group we´d been dancing with the previous night were all police and in the procession. All the locals were gathered to watch the procession which began outside the church. There were tonnes of police with either swords or brass instruments marching from the church to the lake. Leading the procession was the chief of police in robes and behind them a large statue of the virgin of copacabana was being carried. We followed the procession and got given posters of the virgin and rose petals to throw at her. When we got down to the lake the statue was raised on to a boat with the chief of police. We saw our new policeman friends in the crowd and went to chat with them, as they were about to get on another boat to follow the statue we got to go on too and motored around lake Titicaca for a while.