Copacabana sits at the end of a peninsula and to reach the town you have to cross a narrow strait at a place called Tiquina. These small wooden arges (powered by little outboard motors) are the means of crossing.
A little gallows humor in naming barges
Accidents involving the loss of vehicles (and people) are not uncommon, and there have been some truly disastrous ones, including one some years ago where a barge lost a bus loaded with foreign students, killing them all. The government, with financial assistance and encouragement from the UN and other international development funds, has on several occasions proposed a bridge, but a bridge proposal never goes anywhere because of complaints of the residents, who see the loss of their ferrying business. Instead, for safety reasons (and to create even more economic opportunities for the locals) only the driver and one other person are now allowed to ride in the vehicle on the barge. All other passengers are transported across on small motor boats.
On the way back we were on a barge behind a minivan whose driver picked the crossing as the time and place to change a tire. The tire he is putting on is bald and it may be hard to see how it is an improvement over the one coming off. It is (less steel belt showing).
While crossing the barges rock with the waves, which at that time were only a foot or two, but also with larger waves from the wakes of passing barges and other boats, and the barges get knocked around by other barges. In short, although a time saving strategy for a driver in a hurry to get back to La Paz, it was not something my driver Rosendo recommends (in fact Rosendo said he doesn’t even like to cross later in the evening when the wind picks up). We watched this play out right in front of us with a genuine fear that the van was going to fall off the jack onto the driver. In the end, it did not.
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