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Published: July 25th 2008
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Our next sojourn out of La Paz was to head for Lake Titicaca and Isla Del Sol (Island of the sun), the birthplace of the Sun, according to the Incas. We were trying to decide whether to go to Lake Titicaca from Peru or Bolivia. After talking with people and reading up a bit about it all, we decided on going from Copacabana in Bolivia. Apparently there is a lot of tension between the locals and the foreign owned tour companies in Peru, and as a tourist you can feel unwelcome as a result. It also fitted in with our plans to meet up with Laurence and Phillipe back in La Paz in a few days to do the Choro Trek.
The first glimpses of Lake Titicaca are absolutely amazing. No wonder it was such a sacred place to the Incas and pre Inca people. No wonder it still is, to the Inca´s descendants. After driving over monotonous dry desert hills and through equally dry plains for seemingly ages you suddenly come round a bend and see this huge, clear, sparkling inland sea lined with reeds. At some points, you look out and can only see water right to the
Horizon. It is the closest thing the Bolivians have to the ocean. Actually, I had a strange, vivid dream while staying here that I was teaching a bunch of Bolivians how to surf on Lake Titicaca, and there were actually waves!
Although it is definitely a tourist town, I liked Copacabana. We checked out some nearby ruins and walked up to the top of the hill to watch the sun set. The hill is a bit of an out door church, so there were a lot of locals praying and making offerings up there but they did not seem to mind tourists being there though.
We spent a night in Copacabana and then we walked out of town along the lake shore and out to a peninsula where we payed a man in a row boat to row us out to Isla Del Sol. Our 78 year old boatman got tired mid way across the lake though, and had to stop to chew some coca leaves, so we took turns in using the big old clumsy splintery oars. It was hard work but good fun. We got dropped off, well, to be more precise, we dropped ourselves off
standing on the shore of Lake Titicaca
about to cross the water on the way to Cochabamba at the rocky end of the island. From there, we walked via some ruins in to town on the Southern end of the Island, where we stayed for two nights. We found a cheap hostel where we got a private room for about US$3. The beds were probably the most uncomfortable yet- bases were made from mud brick with half logs across them to bridge the gaps. The logs were layed with the round side up and the mattress was just a thin piece of foam. Oh, and the pillowcases were just filled with lumps of stuffing that you would pack a box with. BUT, we could watch the sun rise over the lake from our bedroom window which was pretty neat. And the owner taught me how to say thanks in Aymara, which I have now totally forgotten. I think it sounded something like Usellapie (You sell a pie).
From Yumani, the town where we stayed we spent a day walking right to the North end of the island along the ridge in the center of the Island, and then back along the coast. This may sound impressive, but the Island is only 10km at the most in
length, so it was a long day, but not an epic one. At the end of the island were some remarkably intact Inca ruins and the temple of the sun. Near this temple is some flat sandstone on the ground with large natural footprint looking shapes in it. The Incas say these are the footprints of the sun. There are no signs showing exactly where these footprints are, and they are quite difficult to spot so I was very excited when I saw them. On the way back, we walked through the other two towns on the Island, and past some sandy coves, that looked straight out of the Mediterranean. While on the note of looking like other places, at other times I thought we were back in Australia, because there were Eucalypt trees everywhere as a result of a reforestation project. The three towns on the island are all fairly low key. All of them now have hostels and restaurants catering to tourists but they are not at all over the top, and walking along the island you can get a feel for the way people have lived for years and are still living. A lot of the steep
hilly land was terraced by the Incas to make it easier to farm, and these stone terraces are still used today.
It was on this island though, that we experienced the first pestering. Something that does not happen in Chile or Argentina. We could not walk past a shop, a restaurant or someone on the side of the road without being called out to in Spanish, English or Spanglish. Phrases such as ¨Miss, buy from me¨, ¨Hola amigos, you want some necklace,¨ and ¨Photo, take photo¨ became part of the general soundscape. At one point on our first day, I took a photo of a lama on the cobbled street, and a girl suddenly ran up to me and demanded money. I do not even know if it was her lama. She was no where near it when I took a photo. Having not had this happen to me before, I just gave her 1 sol, but then she demanded more and I just said no and walked off. We have since gotten very used to this form of badgering and pestering. I cant help finding it a little sad when children want to pose infront of you, and
look cute in order to prompt you to take their photo though.
Badgering and pestering aside, we had a great time on the Island. Sun was a general theme on the island, which is fitting for Isla Del Sol. We spent our time dodging it during the day (the anti malaria medicine we are taking makes us highly sensitive to the sun) when it was in full glory, watching it set in the evenings and rise in the morning. We left feeling sun kissed and revived.
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