Copacabana

Long before the Spanish, the Copacabana peninsula was a sacred landscape. The Aymara had venerated the islands of the lake from time immemorial, and when the Incas absorbed the region they adopted the shrine and oracle on Isla del Sol, where their religion placed the birth of the sun, and held Copacabana as the key to it, with minor shrines where Inca ceremonies were observed alongside local ones. The stone observatory on the hill of Kesanani, older than the Incas, is a reminder of how long the site has been watched over.

After the Spanish arrived in the 1530s, Dominican friars made Copacabana the centre of their missions around the lake, and in 1589 the shrine was entrusted to the Augustinians. A few years earlier Francisco Tito Yupanqui, an Indigenous sculptor descended from the Inca nobility, had made an image of the Virgin after many failed attempts; it was installed in Copacabana, miracles were attributed to it, and the town became a great pilgrimage centre. The present basilica was built in the 17th century, and the Virgin's fame spread so far that her name was carried to a chapel on a beach in Rio de Janeiro.

During the great Indigenous uprising of 1781 the church was desecrated, though the Virgin's chapel was left untouched, and in 1826 President Antonio José de Sucre expropriated the shrine's jewels and colonial treasures to make Bolivia's first coins. In 1925 the image was crowned by papal decree, in 1940 the shrine became a minor basilica, and the Virgin of Copacabana remains the patroness of Bolivia.

Copacabana's life turns on the Virgin. Pilgrims come from across Bolivia and southern Peru to pray before her image in its chapel, light candles and climb Cerro Calvario, where offerings and ch'allas, ritual libations, accompany their requests at the summit. Catholic devotion and Aymara practice sit side by side here as naturally as anywhere in the Andes, and the town is known throughout Bolivia for its religious celebrations, festivals and traditional heritage.

The great feasts are on 2 February, the Candlemas feast of the Virgin of Candelaria, and in early August, when dance troupes, brass bands and thousands of pilgrims fill the square in front of the basilica. Indigenous dances accompany these feasts, and the clergy have never been able to suppress them entirely. Holy Week brings large crowds to Calvario. The Alasitas tradition of miniature offerings, seen at its largest in La Paz, is also part of the Virgin's feast here.

Most people on the peninsula and the islands are Aymara, and Aymara is widely spoken alongside Spanish. On Isla del Sol, where about 800 families live, farming on ancient terraces, fishing and tourism shape island life. Courtesy, a greeting and respect for sacred places are expected everywhere.

About 6,000 people live in the town itself, and the municipality of Copacabana, which reaches south to the Peruvian border and includes Isla del Sol, had about 17,500 at the 2024 census. The town lies between the hills of Calvario and Niño Calvario, on the western end of a peninsula that is cut off from the rest of Bolivia by the Strait of Tiquina and joined by land only to Peru.

Pilgrimage and tourism are the main businesses: hotels, restaurants, boat owners, candle and souvenir sellers and the transport between La Paz and the Peruvian border at Kasani, one of the main entry points into Bolivia for foreign visitors. Around the town, families farm potatoes and other highland crops on terraces and fish the lake, and trout is both a local food and a source of income. Boat owners and barge crews at Tiquina depend on the crossing and have opposed proposals for a bridge, which other residents of the peninsula have long called for.

Days are quiet once the morning boats have left for the islands and the buses for La Paz or Puno have gone, and busier again at sunset, when people gather along the beach. The rhythm changes completely at festival time and at weekends, when pilgrims arrive by the busload. The national shortages of fuel and dollars and blockades on the road to La Paz are felt here too, as the town depends on visitors and supplies arriving by road and ferry.

Trout is Copacabana's speciality, so dominant that practically every restaurant serves it. Trucha — the rainbow trout raised and fished in Lake Titicaca — comes fried or grilled, usually with rice, potatoes and salad, and a long row of stalls on the beach cooks little else. Ispi, a small native fish of the lake, is the older local catch.

Beyond the lake, the cooking is that of the Altiplano. Potatoes in many forms, including chuño, the freeze-dried potato of the high plateau, go into soups and side dishes, quinoa is common, and set lunches of soup and a main course are the everyday meal in the market and small restaurants. On cold mornings, api, the thick purple-corn drink, is drunk with fried buñuelos.

Avenida 6 de Agosto has adapted to travellers, with cafés and pizza places alongside the trout houses, and evening stands near the market serve trout with rice and potatoes to locals and visitors alike. Coca tea is offered everywhere for the altitude, Paceña beer is the usual drink, and on feast days the ch'alla — a ritual offering of drink to Pachamama — accompanies the celebrations.