Here are a few photos I took and a taxi ride from Copacabana to Yampupata and back. Copacabana is a town on Lake Titicaca, Bolivia and is the closest thing to a beach resort that Bolivia has. The other Copacabana, in Brazil, was supposedly named after this one (hard to believe, but it may be true). It is also the headquarters of the Bolivian navy, though I didn't see even a motor boat that looked in the slightest bit menacing (maybe they were all out on patrol). Yampupata is a small town at the end of a peninsular that has no great claim to fame except that you can catch a rowboat to the Isla Del Sol from there.

I took a taxi to explore the area and stopped in a village where a road gang was repairing the road - and it needed it. The taxi was an old Dodge, which was fortunate as few modern cars could have negotiated the track that looked like a road on the map. I stopped and gave a donation to the guy who seemed to be the leader of the gang, then took out my camera and started to take some photos.

Photographing people in the Andean countries can be quite a challenge as many are quite camera shy. Part of this is based on a superstition that a camera can capture your soul, but most just seems to be due to natural shyness. I found that 90% of people really didn't mind, though many have got the idea that they should be paid for a photo (which is why a gave a donation to the gang). Even those who were shy would come to look at their photos on the digital camera and they gave me their address so I could send them prints.

I hope you like the photos. There are many more to come but they take time to process. All these were taken with a Canon EOS 10D with a 17-40mm lens.