Lisa's big fat blog: Day 20: Titicaca

Well, I've officially failed the 30 day writing challenge but I'm going to go ahead and attempt to finish out these last 10 days. Starting with...

Our Family Trip to Copacabana!

We're going on a road trip!!

Can you tell I love family trips? We feel strongly around here that getting outside of the every day routine and making fun memories as a family is super important- I mean, who doesn't? So, using Moses' birthday as an excuse to get away, we took Friday off of school and hit the road. One of the blessings that makes this possible is a beloved family that lives in our old apartment one street over who have a son Natty's age that we hire to come feed the cats and dogs. I'm always thankful to have friends who live nearby! So, here's a few special things we always look forward to when we do family vacay: the kids get to eat sugary cereal, bedtimes are more flexible, more treats, no agenda, souvenirs, movies, special places to stay. For our family, getting away means relaxing and not pushing a lot of activity into our day. It also means foods that Mommy and Daddy would normally not allow. And, we always try to find somewhere cool to stay since we will be spending a fair amount of time in that place doing a lot of nothing in particular. This time, Mommy totally scored with The Snail.

This place was so whimsical inside with beautiful views of the stunning Lake Titicaca from the round windows. There were plenty of beds and best of all, a yard with hammocks. The hammocks would have been the highlight of the trip, but there were only two and the kids kept fighting over them. They were still pretty great.

Another highlight: alpacas- the nice ones and the evil ones. The nice ones lived next door and you could feed them puff cereal and dig your fingers into their thick fur.

Nice alpaca.

The evil ones lived on our hotel grounds and tried to bite you every time you walked by. And, they were usually not tied up and would often wander into our yard and look at us menacingly from outside our windows, daring us to come out. We didn't like them and I had to slap one in the face one time, but they added some spice to the trip.

Bad alpaca wants to bite my face.

The last time we went to the lake, we camped in a tent on a random piece of land outside of the city that belonged to a man we met that day. Moses was two. There were no bathrooms. There were hailstorms with loud thunder and lightening in the night. You can imagine how relaxing that trip was. This time, since the kids were bigger and we weren't challenging them just by lodging in nature, we decided to push them to hike the stations of the cross. This hike is up a pretty steep hillside and is a place where some people go to seek the favor of God, Mary and the Pachamama all at once. Therefore, there are vendors selling sacrifices and amulets and shamans waiting to perform whatever ritual you need.

Candles lit on at the top.

The hike is strewn with garbage, an unfortunate pattern in a lot of natural wonders in Bolivia, and reeks of incense. Although there was much grumbling and complaining at the beginning, I think the kids got into it on the way up. By the time we got to the top, Jubilee and Natty were feeling a certain amount of the spiritual darkness and were ready to head back down. Moses seemed content to have made it all the way to the top. I prayed with the girls as we walked and reminded them that we carry the light with us and have nothing to fear from the darkness, also reminding them that this is the reality for a lot of people who live in the place they call home.

Not a bad view of Copacabana from the top of the hike.

Other high points from the trip worth mentioning: taking out a swan paddle boat (well, this was a Donald Duck boat to be specific) that caused one of my girls great trepidation and led us to turn back early;

Some of us enjoyed the paddle boat.

riding across the straights of Tiquina in the famous well patched and worn wooden ferries that don't look like they can hold us and that giant tour bus (but it did);