Rest Day - Copacabana

I am sure that when I heard songs about "Copacabana" as a kid, that they weren't written about this place. I mean, sure it's a nice enough small Bolivian town on Lake Titicaca but it's not exactly somewhere to write home about, let alone, writing a song about.

We're spending the day here today, my tent having been erected in an attic space upstairs so as to dry out, rather than as overflow accommodation and as a consequence with that being the only chore that I needed to attend to, I set about exploring the "sights"!

Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, Copacabana was an outpost of Inca occupation, along with many other sites in Bolivia. The Incas acknowledged its importance to the local community as an ancient shrine and a place of worship to the Oracle who ruled over the Islands of Titicaca, an element of which is still acknowledged / retained by the citizens of the town, with the town often being the scene of boisterous indigenous celebrations & dancing which the current day church has been unable to suppress entirely.

That said, a large 16th-century shrine the "Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana" was built by the Spanish, with Moorish domes and adorned with ornate religious artifacts, in reverence to the Lady of Copacabana, the patron saint of Bolivia. 

Unfortunately whilst the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana isn't perhaps as ornate as it was historically, having been allegedly ravished to some extent during the Bolivian War of Independence which began in 1809 but didn't lead to the nation's independence till 1825 it was still well worth the visit nonetheless.

Having only the one day in town, not that I am sure I would have stayed too much longer, it did mean that I was unable to visit Isla del Sol or Isla de la Luna, the islands with sacred Incan archaeological sites in Lake Titicaca. I did nonetheless have an interesting day!