Bolivia is Titi!

Even though guide Eddy had tried to hammer into us that Peru was "Titi" and Bolivia "Caca", we all agreed that it was definately the other way round! Copacabana definately is Titi - which should become our battle call for our stay in Copacabana! ;-)

When we arrived in Copacabana, the sun was shining, the lake was turquoise blue and the whole town was decked out for the Fiesta de la Virgen de la Candelaria. The cars were decorated with flowers and ribbons to be blessed by a priest in front of the cathedral and it seemed that everybody was dressed in festive dress. I especially fell in love with the busy little beach full of food stalls, paddle boats and Bolivian families having a picknick. All afternoon there was music and dancing in the streets and when the sun set it got really crazy. People of all ages where drinking and dancing and the whole town was one great party! Of course we joined the dancing and soon met many fellow backpackers from France, Denmark, Argentina... and the Chilean history teacher! Making out with a girl he had obviously just met! Who would have thought that of the quiet history teacher - still waters run deep ;-)

Around 2pm the music stopped and I went back to the hostel thinking the party was over. But a soon as I was in bed the music started again. When I woke up around 7am it was still playing or playing again. I have no idea if had stopped at all. When we went down to the plaza to have breakfast there were still people drinking on the street and the music and dancing went on. We took a little break from it and hiked to a little village called Sicuani from where we took a boat to the Isla del Sol. After dinner, of course, we joined the party again. As it seemed, most people had kept on drinking and it got definately more rough then on the first day.

When we were walking down to the plaza we saw women in full festive dress peeing on the streets and children trying to pull their parents home. The plaza was flooded in what seemed a mix of pee and beer and even though it was not later than 9pm most people seemed to be really wasted. And the Chilean history teacher was making out with another girl. Ryan suspected that he had eaten the first one. Judging by the way he was kissing her this seemed very likely and we agreed on calling him the Chilean Cannibal.

Ryan was keen on making some local friends and finally found some lovely ladies from La Paz who willingly shared their beer and hats with us. Unfortunately they were dragged home by their daughters soon after... Around 2pm we also made our way home through drunken people, beer and pee and tried to get some rest to be "en pleine form" for our last day in Copacabana - and the bull fighting that was scheduled for this day!

When we heard about the bull fighting we were a bit sceptical at first - would it be a cruel spectacle like in Spain? Would they hurt or even kill the bulls? Or would it be like the Pamplona bull race? We decided to give it a go and went to the ring at 3pm. People had told us that it would start at this time but the stands were still in construction and neither bulls nor spectators to be seen. Ryan, Susanna, Ellen - a German girl we had met at breakfast - and I sat down to enjoy some prickly pears and watch how the stands were being constructed. Very adventurous and nearly as entertaining as a bull fight ;-) At 3:30pm they were nearly ready and for 7 Bolivianos we got a seat in the front row. Slowly, more and more people kept coming and the stands filled up. The "toreros" also arrived but thank God they were nothing like the ones you know from Spanish bull fighting. They were dressed in jeans or sport clothes and most of them pretty drunk ;-) We asked one young and pretty sober guy to take pictures of us on the stand and that was when the fun really started ;-) The young guy took one picture with Ryan's camera and then went away. I wanted one with camera, too, and a really, really drunken guy accepted. He was so drunk he could barely stand but he was determined in taking a great picture. Shaking and babbling he directed us to smile and the whole stand, maybe the whole stade was watching and laughing. He even spoke some English ("Very good", "Welcome", "One- two -three") and we were in tears! I was scared that he would drop my camera but he took a great picture of us ( see above) and I got back my camera save and sound! Susanne was not so lucky - he dropped her camera and then half jokingly pretended to throw it up to the stand! After this comical introduction we already had a feeling that this bullfight would be more about killing beer cans than bulls. At various times completely sloshed men would stumpled into the ring, doing all kind of strange moves, falling to the ground, babbling and the spectators would call "torro, torro" (bulls, bulls) and burst into laughter. When the first bull was let into the ring somew of the drunken guys more or less jumped on him and got turn to the ground. But most of the time the bulls just wanted to go home and where not very enthusiastic about fighting. This caused yells of "Take home the sheep", "We want bulls with balls" or aimed at the wasted "toreros" - "Don't fall in love with the bull" or "Kiss the bull" ;-).

The best scene was definately when the bull turned his back on the heroic "toreros" and slowly walked towards the ice cream guy, not to attack him, more in a curious way. The ice cream guy just waved him away and kept on selling ice cream. So far for the dangerous bulls of Copacabana ;-) The bull fighting here definately is more about beer than about bulls and I bet that toreros got hurt worse than the bulls - by stumpling over or beating up each other. Definately a very entertaining afternoon!