Copacabana Travel Guide

The Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana faces Lake Titicaca from the little pilgrim town of Copacabana, Bolivia's holiest shrine. Inside, the dark-skinned Virgin of Candelaria was carved in 1583 by Francisco Tito Yupanqui, a self-taught sculptor descended from Inca royalty; she is now patroness of Bolivia, dressed in Inca princess robes and heaped with pilgrim jewels. The Renaissance church with Moorish touches, begun in the early 1600s, glitters with gold altarpieces. Bus from La Paz takes about four hours; on the February and August feast days the square floods with dancers.