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Published: August 8th 2010
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A public bus took us on a long drive around the massive Lake Titicaca. The lake just keeps going and was a beautiful blue colour in the sunlight of the morning. After a long, slow, inefficient border crossing (as expected) we hit the small town of Copacabana and were met by our Bolivian guide, Gonzalo, a very well educated man in his early 30s who would devote his entire next few days solely to us.
In Copacabana we boarded our boat to Sun Island, but not before waiting half an hour for a triathlon to finish. The water is freezing cold (given how high altitude we are) so Gonzalo is surprised that they are swimming but noted that in the middle of winter there is a race across the lake for extreme athletes. The boat ride is calm but it feels more like an ocean than a lake. We pass the uninhabited moon island before hitting the relatively big Sun Island.
Landing on the deserted south side of the island, the contrast between the bright blue lake and the dull dirt of the island is striking and we marvel at the crops growing in terraces on what is a
very barren landscape. We stop at the only house on the south side and have an "aptaki" lunch, which is a shared lunch of corn, potatoes, broadbeans all of which are growing around us on the surrounding terraces - as well as some chicken which for some reason tastes like KFC, lamb, fish and fruit as well. There is way too much food for the three of us and Gonzalo takes some to give to the kids we see on the way to the Ecolodge de Estancia, which is a one hour walk to the middle of the island.
On the way to the Ecolodge we see lots of farmers with their donkeys, sheep, pigs and crops all very cheerily going about their business and saying
hola to us from their simple, mud brick properties as we walk past. Whilst it is dry, rocky terrain on Sun Island, the views looking out to the lake are spectacular. On the way, we see an Inca fountain of youth which Gonzalo confesses he has been drinking out of for hundreds of years. We reach the Ecolodge and are the only people staying there that night, so we have the meals area
to ourselves. The rooms are very primitive - open air, no TV, bad shower, but we are getting used to this kind of luxury in Peru and Bolivia. Speaking of primitive, our bags arrive from the boat by donkey!
We have some herbal tea at 5pm which seems to be the norm in South America and play cards. The family that run the Ecolodge are in the kitchen preparing dinner. At 6pm, Gonzalo takes us on a sunset walk to the highest point of the island, and the sunset is amazing on the lake as it turns different shades of blue and purple. At the highest point there is a lookout and many piles of rocks which people have assembled as offerings to the Pachamama, who is basically Incan version of mother nature. We take lots of pictures and stumble back over the rocks for dinner which kicks off with some strong Pisco Sour (fairly typical in this part of the world) before some great trout. Gonzalo tries to teach us a card game and a dice game after dinner but we don’t really get it. We have a fairly early night knowing that sunrise wakes us up in
an open air room!
The next morning Gonzalo shows us the Inca ruins on the north side, said to be the birthplace of the Inca civilisation - and the massive puma rock which was rock carved to look like a puma, as well as a sacrificial stone. Gonzalo explains to us that the Tiwanaku civilisation is of much more importance than Incas as they were going on for over 1,000 years before Inca and much of Inca learnings were from the Tiwanaku.
We go back to the boat ramp and say goodbye to our Indian hosts who still believe the lake is sacred and make offerings to it - luckily not us - and go back to Copacabana - a small town where we wander around the markets and enjoy the church with its black Madonna. A car out the front was being blessed with holy water. In South America, people believe blessing their car works better than insurance - seeing the way people drive, they need more than a blessing to save their cars. We have a pancake like snack in the market which is full of fruits, meat and fish - the smells of which made
it hard for me to enjoy a sweet snack. The snack was prepared by a woman sitting in the middle of the market with a pot of hot oil and spinning some dough, very primitive indeed and i’m pretty sure there was no food handling training or certifications handed out in Bolivia.
All in all, Sun Island was well worth the overnight visit to, an our hosts at the Ecolodge gave us an insight of a past life. I wonder if they know what goes on in the outside world and choose their traditional life, or if they are blissfully unaware that it is the 21st century.
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