Day 16 - Isle Del Sol

---

Day 16 - Isle Del Sol

Today we arranged to go on a boat trip on Lake Titicaca to the Isle Del Sol. The Isle Del Sol is the legendary birthplace of the sun in Inca mythology. As we approached the ram shackled jetty we see the small wooden tourist boat nearly full of people but we managed to get a seat near the front. It is mainly full of foreign tourists however there were also some local people who must use it like a bus to get to the island. People continue to squeeze on the boat both on the upper and lower decks before the small smoky engine was started and we were off.

Our boat took approximately 2 hours to reach the north side of the island where they dropped us off. We were then to trek on the central ridge of the island towards the south for the return boat journey.

We visited a small museum with artefacts from underwater explorations before setting off on the trek over the island. The beach we walked across was busy with people waking up from their sleep in tents, hippies doing yoga and animals having a morning stroll.

The first archaeological site was the place where the Inca legend began, although now it is just some ruins on top of a hill. It seems like a sacred place as a lot of locals and some visitors were there to pray.

It was a lovely dry sunny day and nearly perfect for walking as it was quite cloudy at times. We knew the trek would take us a few hours but it was so difficult to walk up the slightest incline without loosing your breath that it was going to take us a while.

The view of Lake Titicaca was stunning as it was a very peaceful lake. Although the island was very beautiful we were rushed and did not see any other points of interest along the route. The scenery changed from dry and desert like in the north to green and lush in the south.

Along the route we were stopped several times by local people trying to get us to buy a ticket to continue along the path. As we knew nothing about these extra tickets and the people did not look official we continued to walk on without paying. Upon reaching the second makeshift checkpoint we and another group start to argue with the lady trying to make us pay for these unknown tickets. As we walk off she runs after us trying to block our path.

About 300 metres further along the route we came across two men wearing mock official badges and smart clothing. Luckily the group we were now walking with spoke Spanish and tried to find out what we had to for. They started to argue in Spanish as again it was not clear what these tickets were for so again we all set off walking without paying.

It was a shame that the local people had tried to con all the visitors to pay for extra tickets that we later checked were not required. It made our trek not as enjoyable as it should have been, especially when they were threatening to tell the Police in Copacabana.

The time was now 2.45pm and we had been walking for a few of hours with only stopping for short snack breaks along the way. We had to rush down a thousand steps to ensure that we got to the boat before it left at 3.30pm. We only just made it and could not believe how fast the time had gone and how fast your were expected to walk.

On our boat trip back they called off at a floating reed island for us to take pictures. It looked a bit fake to us as you could see the pontoons underneath. There was also a film crew on the floating island filming. As we headed back to Copacabana the weather got colder and it was chilly sat in the breeze on the top deck.

In the evening we head to a small cafe called Cafe Bistrot, we had found it last night for brownies and ice cream. The menu included English style food so we both ordered fish and chips! Of course it was not exactly like English fish and chips but surprisingly it was very good.

---

Photos

Isle Del Sol
Old lady carrying rocks for a new school playground