Down at the Copa

Fans of the latino bossa nova classic "Copacabana" will cast their minds to the iconic beachside suburb of Rio de Janeiro, but our trip across the bleak Andean high plain across the Peruvian/Bolivia border bought us to a very different Copacabana.

This town, just kilometres from the Bolivian border, also abuts a body of water - Lake Titicaca, arguably the world's highest, sitting pretty at an altitude of 3800 metres above sea level. In fact, the lake is so big it pretty much looks like a sea, with lurid royal blue water and strong wind-induced currents that make the water lap energetically at its grey-sand beaches.

The only thing that really gives Titicaca away as a lake is a backdrop of imposing mountains. On the Peru side, they are the bleak, treeless hill tops common all over the altiplano, in stark contrast to the majestic snowy peaks of the Cordillera Real or Royal Mountain range on the Bolivian side.

Getting to Copacabana from Cuzco should have been a cinch. An overnight bus to a non-descript Peruvian town called Puno, and change in the morning for a three-hour hop over the border to Copa. Our mistake was attempting to plan ahead and book both bus tickets with the same bus company, assuming there would be a bus with seats assigned to us.

Arriving in freezing Puno at 4:30am with just a few Peruvian soles (about $3) to our names, we had to wait in plastic chairs in the bus terminal until 6am when the bus company ticket office opened. The attendant took our onward ticket (which was just a note scrawled on a bit of paper) and walked us over to a different bus company counter. This company then issued us with a ticket for a bus that not only left later, but was 1/3 of the price than what we had originally paid in advance.

Sunset on the lake

When I queried the price difference and asked why our bus company sold us a ticket for a bus service that did not exist, they simply said that if you buy the ticket in advance somewhere else, that office takes a commission and this explains the price difference. I said that they should pay us the difference or refund our money - after all there were at least five other operators going to Copacabana that we could have gone with for less.

By this time an extremely narky lady had turned up to the ticket office and told us to go away and stop bothering her, so naturally one of my no-sleep-trying-to-express-outrage-in-Spanish arguments ensued. This of course had no effect, but luckily Adam spotted a police officer trying to help out another couple who had also been ripped off (nice to know we weren't the only ones!). He said we should be paid the money and went over to the company to demand it. It should have been that simple but in typical latino fashion several phone calls had to be made to the other office in Cuzco, then the head office, then god knows where.

It quickly became apparent that the police officer meant well but was effectively impotent in the situation. During the kerfuffle the lady at the other bus company who had issued the cheap ticket snatched it off us because we hadn't given her the original proof of purchase (we were showing it to the police officer to try and get our money back). Meanwhile the clock was ticking and it was two minutes until the bus was due to depart, and we had no ticket and no refund. And no local currency to pay the ridiculous 50 cents "bus station" tax.

At the eleventh hour the ticket snatcher returned our ticket, held the bus for us and ushered us on, unfortunately minus the refund for our massive overpayment but at that point we were exhausted and pleased to get out of there. And we learned a lesson - never buy bus tickets for an advance destination! And lesson two - Peruvians are nice people but given the chance, will always try to fleece a few extra soles off you.

The tranquil lakeside retreat of Copacabana was not a huge visual departure from other Peruvian towns in the highlands, but we soon noticed a distinctly more laidback feel, and a slower pace of life in general. From getting stuck behind large groups of highland Inca ladies dresed in bowler hats, shawls and full skirts spreading themselves out across the pavement, to waiting in a shop for a simple transaction or sitting in a restaurant for up to an hour before receiving a drink, Bolivians do not seem to be in a hurry.

Inca ladies may look sweet and innocent in their curiously layered outfits and bowler hats positioned precariously on their heads with long black braids falling down their backs, but is is immediately clear that they are in at the top of the social hierarchy here. They control the vending stalls that line the streets, work in the shops and are the masterchefs calling the shots in family restaurants.

Fresh caught trout

For a country where nearly one-quarter of people are said to be malnourished, there are some extremely large ladies waddling around here. They're generally not tall, and with the layers of shawls, aprons, blankets, skirts and petticoats they get around in to stave off the cold, have a positively spherical appearance. I can't work out if it is all the layers they wear, or whether they stash their valuables under their aprons or whether they all become obese after the age of 30.

Perfectly positioned on the shores of Lake Titicaca, Copacabana's many cheap and cheerful family run restaurants serve up delicious versions of the regional delicacy - trout, or trucha as it is locally known. For 35 bolivianos, or $5 Aussie dollars, you get a massive slab of grilled tender pink flesh, crispy at the ends but deliciously tender in the middle, along with piles of rice, salad and hot chips.

In the 24 hours we were in Copa, we managed to order the trout three separate times, each done differently. The first was simply cooked in lemon and butter, the second was smothered in a blissfully gooey coating of cheese and the third was sauteed in white wine and garlic.

While sitting at an outdoor cafe, we were approached by one of Latin America's ubiquitous wandering shoe-shine guys. Normally our shoes are not of the shineable variety, but Adam was wearing some rubber-soled slip ons with a leather upper. Adam instinctively said no, but the man looked at us with pleading eyes and said in a hoarse voice that we could pay him whatever we wanted.

Adam relented, and as the guy was shining the tops of his shoes, told us that he was a Peruvian who had come to Bolivia in search of work but had been unable to find anything. He had resorted to shoe-shining, to the unfortunate discovery that barely anyone in Copacabana had leather shoes. "Everyone wears sandals and sports shoes here," he lamented. As a result he was trying to get back to Peru, but had nowhere to live and was sleeping outdoors, in subzero temperatures. We gave him his bus fare back to the Peruvian border town, and said that we hoped that his luck would soon change.

Many travellers stay longer at the lake to take tours to some of the islands - Isla del Sol, with its Inca ruins is the most heavily promoted, and there are man-made floating islands that locals use to farm fish. We decided to skip the island visits and guided tours to indigenous villages, as they appeared a little fake and put on.