We decided today wasn't the day to travel 2.5 hours by boat to Isla Del Sol, a beautiful island and biggest attraction at Copacabana.
Also, using our newly gained travel experience, poor room normally equals poor breakfast, so we decided on another hour in bed and a brunch in town late morning instead!
Around 11am we went for brunch at a local Cafe and immediately bumped into Dave and Eliot who we'd met in La Paz on Christmas Day.
We decided to visit Isla Del Sol the next day together and went to the travel agent as a group and booked our tickets.
At the same time, Lauren and I booked a bus to Puno (Peru) for the same day (29th Dec) a trip to the floating islands near Puno and a bus from Puno to Cusco for 30th Dec as we had accommodation booked in Cusco from 30th until early January. Cusco is where we will be visiting Machu Pichu from.
We then took a walk down to the 'beach' which was packed with locals on Christmas holidays queuing to go on jet skis, peddlos and canoes.
It had actually turned out to be a beautiful day and so we all decided to head to a seafront bar with a roof terrace to'reward' ourselves with a few beers.
The roof terrace had the usual attention to Bolivian health & safety (ie, no handrails or ANYTHING to stop anyone falling off!
Eliot on the left, Lauren in the middle and Dave on the right
Lauren takes over the story from here:
When we were researching restaurants in the Copacabana area, none of them sounded amazing but we had read about a set of make shift restaurants on the beachfront. These were by no means fancy but were a fraction of the price compared to gringo (tourist) street. There were several of these restaurants but one was recommended above the others on trip advisor. Hut 9. So, we all set off to find Hut 9.
Hut 9 was actually distinguishable from at least 20 meters away. Why you ask? Hmmmm, well...... We had come across Bolivian Gareth who had consumed his body weight in beer and was dancing like a man crossing a path of hot coals and waving his arms around like a monkey. Does this movement sound familiar to any of you? As Gareth had found his counterpart, he thought it was too good an opportunity not to miss and proceeded to join said Bolivian, showing him that he too, was capable of the coal monkey dance.
Here are a few photos that hopefully convey this special and unique dance:
Hut 9 was actually distinguishable from at least 20 meters away. Why you ask? Hmmmm, well...... We had come across Bolivian Gareth who had consumed his body weight in beer and was dancing like a man crossing a path of hot coals and waving his arms around like a monkey. Does this movement sound familiar to any of you? As Gareth had found his counterpart, he thought it was too good an opportunity not to miss and proceeded to join said Bolivian, showing him that he too, was capable of the coal monkey dance.
Here are a few photos that hopefully convey this special and unique dance:
Dave,'Waldo', Eliot and me doing an obligatory photo to avoid obligatory dancing!
The Bolivian guy's son, with a very glazed look on his face, kept saying, 'my name is Waldo', turns out that he was trying to tell us that the dancing champion was called Waldo. What I haven't told you, is that this was 17:30 and he appeared to be out for an early dinner with his family.
Waldo's family wanted to leave but surprise surprise, he didn't. He was having too much fun with his new dancing partner. There was only one way for Waldo to leave and that was for his new best buddy (AKA Gareth), to dance him all the way to the end of the street where his family were waiting.
After the excitement had subsided we settled down to a good dinner, I had trucha (trout) again and Gareth had beef Milanese. We also had a couple of beers and the bill came to £7, including tip!
It's common for bands/solo artists to effectively busk in the restaurant where you eat and today was no different. 3 guys from Chile serenaded us with a Chilean samba whilst we were tucking into our dinner. Whilst we enjoyed the music, we had no change for the musicians other than 50 Bolivianos which was about £5. This was a bit steep for buskers doing two songs so Gareth decided to get value, starting with another song. Now, as I mentioned before, Gareth is working on coming out of himself and he took another step forward today. Can you believe that he asked to play a song himself? Well the actual shock for me was that he didn't play Johnny B Good!!! So, what did he play? Well, another golden oldie,'twist and shout'. Everyone joined in and the band did backing vocals and then led into 'la bamba'. Gareth was satisfied and handed over the cash.
Earlier in the day Gareth had spotted a poker set in a cafe and suggested to our friends Dave and Eliot that we should play later that day. So that we did. Whilst playing poker another band played for us, they were fantastic and did 3 part harmonies. All in all, Gareth's dream day and a pretty good day for me too. We opted for a fairly early night as we are up early to explore Isla Del Sol tomorrow.
PPP poker face (the Brockles' won)
Hilarious. So pleased that Gareth has managed to overcome his shyness and rediscovered his Maillezais spirit! Hope you videod it! xx
ReplyDeleteGareth, so you finally came out of your shell and went native musically that is. Lauren so you won at the poker is the start of a new income stream? Sounds quite our scene with the dancing! Love Howard & Mum
ReplyDeleteJust another day at the office then? The reason G didn't sing Jonny B Goode is he's never known all the words :-) La Bamba, of course, can be fudged & mumbled.
ReplyDeleteWell he certainly managed it in the depth of rural France in 2010!
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