The hill at the northern end of Copacabana is called the Calvario, or Station of the Cross. The trail, leading past fourteen crosses, takes about thirty minutes to ascend, and at the top, you're rewarded with a great view of the city behind you and Lake Titicaca, stretching out endlessly in front.
Oh, Copacabana. We really wanted to like you. You were perhaps the city in Bolivia we were most looking forward to! It started out perfectly... the bus ride from La Paz was beautiful, and included a short ferry trip. By the time we arrived, and took in your gorgeous location along Lake Titicaca, our excitement level was through the roof. But we have to be honest, Copacabana. In the end, you were the worst town we visited in Bolivia.
Built in 1945 with the cooperation of Mexico, Angostura was the biggest irrigation project yet attempted in Bolivia, and still provides over 75 million cubic meters of water to the region, and is a gorgeous place to take a short boat ride.
The Salar de Uyuni is the most bizarre landscape I've ever stepped foot on, wresting the title away from South Dakota's Badlands, which I visited when I was nine. (That's a long run, Badlands, nothing to hang your head about!) Absolutely level as far as the eye can see, the salt flat becomes one of the world's largest mirrors when covered with water, and serves as an important orientation point from space. But we were visiting during winter, when the ground is cracked and dry.
Also called the Isla del Pescado thanks to its fish-like profile, the island of Incahuasi is situated smack in the middle of the enormous Salar de Uyuni. We arrived there midway through the first day of our tour. Covered by millennial cacti and composed of coral, the island is a stunning reminder that the salt flats used to be part of a gigantic lake.
