Titicaca

So our trip to Lake Titicaca went really well. We spent the first night in La Paz and returned to the Witch's Market area to do some shopping and have dinner. Our hotel was in a great location and we all went to sleep early that night, which was really nice. The only bad part was when I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and realized Jude was asleep in his Pack-n-Play in there and had to stumble around the hotel looking for a bathroom without shoes on. We took a 3.5 hour bus ride the next morning to Copacabana (Bolivia, not Brazil!). Our hotel was right on the water and we managed to snag their one and only cabana, which stands alone and has 2 bedrooms and a den, perfect! It was colder as we hoped, and we immediately felt Christmasier!
Copacabana is a little fishing village filled with European hippy-types, fish shacks, street vendors, and a laid-back feeling. Sorry if I look homeless in a lot of the pictures...I put on PJ pants and a hat (my roots are getting awful) and pretty much didn't change the entire time. We spent a lot of time watching movies, playing cards, ordering room service, and taking walks by the water. On Christmas Eve, we took a boat out to Isla del Sol to explore with a Bolivian guide, a Swedish woman, an Indian couple, and an Italian couple. Luckily, we all spoke some degree of English and had a blast together:) The boat had a ladder up to a roof deck and the ride was beautiful. When we got to Isla del Sol, we did some hiking and stopped every few minutes to turn around and take pictures...the snow-capped mountains in the distance, the blue water, the green hills on the island, it was very picturesque and I was totally regretting not having an SLR camera. One of the major things grown on the island is quinoa (a big thing in Bolivia) and there were tons of fields of it growing, along with some herbs our guide pointed out that I'd never even heard of. Jude found a buddy to play soccer with, and made friends with a few donkeys and llamas. A successful day in his book!
Santa brought him a guitar for Christmas....another guitar. This one is like a real guitar that you tune and everything, only smaller. He plays it while spinning in circles and "singing." He loved looking at the boats from our window, and one night I was in the room after he went to bed, when he suddenly blurted out "Boat!" in his sleep, which tickled me half to death! He also learned how to eat a gingerbread house without his hands, per the instruction of Dad. It was definitely a change of pace for Christmas, but we made some great memories and it was special to savor the last Christmas of our little family of 3 I've come to love so much:)