As Nick wrote, we spent a lovely sunny day in Copacabana, including lounging in a hammock by the waterfront. It began clouding over in the evening, and at dinner I could see just see the occasional glow of faraway lightning over Nick's shoulder, through the open window. I noticed the patter of rain as we were falling asleep.
The next thing I remember was waking up at about 2am to a sharp crack of lighting. It sounded quite close. Some steady rain ensued, and after a couple of hours of wakeful reading, I went back to bed.
In the morning, the bedside lights wouldn't turn on, and there was no hot water in the shower. There was still a light rain outside, and as we looked over the houses and the beachfront, the light rain slowly but surely started to fall as snow. It was all the more beautiful for being unanticipated.
It turned out that the power outage wasn't just our room, but all of Copacabana and the surrounding islands. We were due to take a small boat out to Isla del Sol that afternoon, an island with some farming hamlets and basic accommodation. Throughout the morning, the snow thickened and the temperatures dropped. We began to wonder whether two days in an island in the middle of winter with no insulation, no heating and snow would be a good idea. We asked the matron of our hotel in broken Spanish whether she thought it was a good idea. She made a noise, sucking air in through her teeth, which was decipherable in any language.
The day before, we had made friends with the owner of a hotel next door, Cúpula. He kindly said that if it got too cold for us, we were welcome to come to the lounge of their hotel, where there was a roaring fire and hot tea. We decided to take him up on the offer while we mulled over our plans. We met a number of other like minded travellers who had decided to give the island a miss, and the comfort of the lounge and warmth of the tea made up our minds. Off to La Paz we went.
A quick visit to the 15th century Basilica de la Virgen de Candelaria before the bus
We managed to catch an afternoon bus, and as we went over the snow-covered hilltops very close to sheer cliffs, I clutched at Nick's hand more than once. We also had the interesting experience of watching our rickety bus cross a channel on an even more rickety boat:
We made it to the city, and I waited at an Internet cafe while Nick went around the corner to check out a hotel we had read about. After about an hour, when the cafe manager kindly told me they were closing, I was getting a bit worried. It turns out that finding a place was more difficult than expected, and on his return Nick had found the gates to the cafe plaza had shut. Happily reunited, we managed to go to a place recommended by the cafe owner, eat some 10pm ravioli and fall into bed.
Traveller tips: Hotel Utama was great, but if we had to do it over we would stay at Cúpula. Not only was the owner extremely friendly and the hotel lovely and warm; they also had a foundation to help local schools and other community projects.
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