Copacabana to La Paz

On Monday, April 25th in Copacabana, we had a leisurely breakfast, packed up and checked out at the last moment at 11 am. At the front desk, we complained again about the sewer gas smell from the bathroom floor drain and the fact that the bathroom sink leaked water onto the floor so badly that it was unusable. The so-called plumber had been in to fix these problems after we had complained the day before but he just made things worse. The desk clerk immediately lowered our bill from $44 US per night to $30 US per night. It seemed like he already knew about these problems because others had probably complained before us. As we sat on our front lawn to kill time before our 1:30 pm bus, we saw the staff clean our room and make it ready for the next guests. If they don't complain, presumably they'll be paying $44 per night. It was a beautiful room. It's too bad they can't seem to fix the plumbing. In the end, we had put a folded wet towel over the floor drain and used the kitchen sink for everything so we hadn't really cared.
Eventually, we wandered down to the street leading to the docks for a set lunch. By 1 pm we had loaded our gear on our tourist bus and were ready to depart. This bus wasn't the best but it was pretty good. We left on time at 1:30. For the first hour we drove through the high mountain scenery with lots of views of Lake Titicaca.
About 2:30 pm we descended back down to a narrows in the lake. We all got off the bus, paid 2 Bolivianos each (40 cents) and boarded a little boat to get across to the other side. The boatman just kept cramming people in until all the bench seats along each side were full. There was no way we were going to sit in the little cabin so we ended up at the back beside the stinky outboard motor which had no cover. There wasn't a life jacket in sight. The wind was sweeping waves straight through the narrows as we crossed parallel to them to get to the other shore. We got a little wet from the spray as the boat rolled but it wasn't too bad. It only took about 10 or 12 minutes to make the crossing.
Our bus crossed a bit later on its own rickety old barge. After a washroom visit while we waited on the other shore, we reboarded the bus and were on our way again. The scenery on the other side gradually got flatter with more grimy little farming villages. A lot of road construction made it a slow trip.
Finally about 4:30 we entered the newer city of El Alto above La Paz. There were lots of unfinished buildings, piles of gravel and rubble and traffic congestion. Hell on earth. Finally we started down the steep canyon road into La Paz and arrived at the bus terminal about 5:45 pm. We had been told that the bus would drop us off in the tourist district near our hotel but that didn't happen. We took a taxi for 20 Bolivianos ($4 CA) to our hotel.
The Sol Andino Hotel gets good reviews on Hostel World and Booking.com but once again, the online pictures were probably taken about 15 years ago. Our room, bathroom and bedding are clean but, especially after our suite that we had just left at La Cupula, everything looked dark and dreary. It seems that there is no light bulb in South America greater than about 10 watts. However, it's only $36 US per night. We rented an electric heater for another $3 US per night, the WIFI is quite good and there's lots of hot water. All the basics are covered.
After getting settled, we went just around the corner to Martini's Pizza which is recommended in Lonely Planet. Our pizza was quite good, washed down with a shared 600 ml Pacena beer. Soon we were back in our room for an hour of Netflix and some sleep.