Semana Santa and Lake Titicaca

It is of course, Holy Week, or Semana Santa, as it is known here. Easter Holidays; woo hoo! I did in fact have an entire day off for Good Friday!

Here the women have been selling things made from palms all weeks, ranging from intricate crosses, to baskets, rings, necklaces, bizarre shapes, bracelets, everything. They also still buy eggs for the children it seems, however they are about the size of a kinder egg! An american lady came here last night and this morning she gave me some cadbury´s mini eggs, which i think she had brought from the US. I have not had chocolate since i left England, but i ate as many as I could all in one go, which in all fairness, was not that many. My chocolate tolerance has sadly dropped an awful lot!

So on Saturday I went to Lake Titicaca with Emma and her family. Athough my family outings have reduced dramatically over the past couple of year, it was nice to go sort of go on one again. We went sailing in a very rickety little boat and then kayaking after. It was pretty similarto a holiday place at a lake in England, apart from a everything was in spanish, and everyone was wearing thick jumpers and shawls in the hot sunshine, because all the Bolivians are inexplicably convinced the country is freezing, despite my constant sunburn.

The lake is about 2hours away from the city, and everyone goes there at Easter. Some families even walk there for up to 4 days, camping along the way. The Bolivians are very proud of the lake, as they have no sea! It stretches as far away as you can see and is very beautiful with all the mountains surrounding it. You can almost see the Peruvian mountains in the distance, as it is half in Peru too.

Other highlights of the week include; getting lost on the wrong side of a set of mountains on the Altiplano- basically a 5 hour detour- oops! My first Bolivian hangover after visiting the english here....this was not my fault... i was talking to someone who then produced from his bag the first version of the lonely planet guide to mention the english pub here. After showing this to the owner who was absolutely delighted to have ´sold out´, it was pretty much free drinks from there. The guide described the pub as´unashamedly english and a somewhat dubious cultural experience...´, which is pretty much a perfect description. I also went to a bolivian club here which had a drummer playing traditional sort of bongo drums along to the western music the dj was playing!