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Published: December 14th 2005
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The following morning it was up early again for the bus to Copacabana on the edge of Lake Titticaka. The bus was full of Gringo´s on this well establised tourist route. This short (4hr) bus ride was notable for two things. Firstly the unforgettable short ferry trip accross part of Lake Titicaka to the Copacabana peninsula where the passengers ´sped´ accross on a small boat whilst each bus went accross at a snail´s pace on what can only be described as flat bottomed wooden boxes. Secondly our first sign of a dodgy stomach - not really the best timing on a bus with no toilet although fortunately nothing too serious.
From Copacabana we took a boat trip to Isla del Sol on perhaps the slowest motorised boat we´ve ever been on. The Isla is popular with tourists due to several remnants from the Inca empire. On arrival we were innundated with offers of accomodation by local kids - we took the offer of the least pushy and set off for his parent´s hostel. The slight snag was that the hostel was in the village which was on top of the ridge 200m vertically above the lake and almost 4000m above
sea level. Toni was more than happy to offload her rucksack onto our 12 year old companion!
After taking in the stunning view accross the lake from our hostel ´Inti Kala´ (certainly one to be recommended) we headed off for a short walk to an Inca palace at the south end of the Isla. A nice walk with great views back towards Copacabana but the ´palace´ itself wasn´t much to write home about. Without rucksacks the walk back up to the hostel was easier but still noticeably much harder than at sea level. As sunset accross the lake we enjoyed a lovely meal in a restaurant all to ourselves. No menu, no prices but not unusual in Bolivia! The price for two courses for two people a staggering 40bs (less than 3 pounds). Sunset was followed by one of the most violent electical storms either of us have ever witnessed and a torrential downpour overnight that seemed to have woken everyone in the hostel.
The following morning the weather the storm had cleared so we headed off for a longer walk up to the North end of the Isla to see some more relics from the Inca empire.
This time the ´labyrinth´temple was more impressive although we were a bit puzzled as to its exact purpose. Someday I´m sure one of the locals will identify this niche in the market and lots of them will be selling information booklets. As it was, only the usual local wares were on sale - sadly this included lots of very young local girls trying to get tourists to take photo´s of them for a small charge. On the walk back along the old inca track along the ridge line we met an english group who were trying to get back for the ferry but struggling because of the altitude. This made is even happier that we were staying another night. Although our meal that evening wasn´t so good, particularly as the advertised ´fast food´ pizza took over an hour to materialise, the even more impressive sunset more than compensated for this.
The next morning we headed back to the mainland and then took the bus to Puno at the other end of Lake Titicaka (and in Peru). In Puno we were left stranded at the bus station as the agent for our pre-booked trip to the floating islands failed to materialise (whilst those who had booked this trip on the bus to Puno were whisked off towards the lake! Sometime later, after a painful walk into town to the agent´s office (as we hadn´t got any Peruvian Sol´s to get a taxi with) and a frantic taxi ride/run to the departure jetty we caught our boat just. So much for forward planning!
We´d been warned that the floating islands were over commercialised and so they proved. Although in the past people had lived on these islands made entirely from reeds it seemed that their presence today was solely to entertain tourists and try to sell mountains of tat (sorry local artifacts). On our return to Puno we quickly ate yet another very average meal before heading back to the bus station for our overnight bus to Arriquipa. After several pretty basic/downright unpleasant bus journeys we´d decided to treat ourselves with the most comfortable option we could find (in the ´posh´ downstairs section of the bus. Our hearts sank when we found ourselves sitting alongside a couple with a young baby although we needn´t have worried as the baby hardly made a noise. Sadly we still endured a pretty fragmented sleep until 3 am when our bus arrived. I can´t explain how happy we were to see a man waiting to take us to our hostel - this had been promised but we really weren´t expecting it.
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