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Published: March 27th 2006
So we left La Paz on our way to Copacabana on the Bolivian side on Lake Titicaca, hoping for a nice easy journey to catch up on sleep. Well it wasn´t quite what we expected as after a couple of hours we all had to get off the bus by a river. A bit dazed and confused we followed the crowd to a little boat and watched as our bus drove onto what i can only describe as a big raft! We obviously got a tad upset at the thought of all of our personal belongings being sunk but 20 minutes later the bus arrived safe and dry on the other side.
We spent our first evening in Copacabana doing very little then decided about 8pm to get a pedalo. Must have been the oldest slowest pedalo in the world and we were beginning to think we´d have to pay double bubble as it was taking so long to pedal back to shore and was even getting dark. But we powered the legs and made it back only about 15 minutes later than planned.
The next day we went to isla de sol - one of the larger islands
on the lake. We had planned to get off at the North of the island and do a 3 hour trek in preparation for the inca trail but decided we couldn´t really be ar*ed! So we left a couple of scousers we´d met in the north to do the trek arranging to meet them at the other end and jumped back on our little boat.
So after a couple more hours on the boat with gina by this time hanging off the side, waving goodbye to her breakfast, we arrived at the south side where we were to spend that night. We waited on the harbour for our scouse friends who were supposed to be getting back on the boat to Copacabana at 4 but we watched our boat sail off without them and sat gloating that they hadn´t done the trek in time. A couple of hours later they still hadn´t arrived so we figured it was time to venture up the extremely step steps towards the hostels. About 8 days later we reached the top and checked into a cute little hostel where gina promptly rolled into bed and me and Jem ventured out to watch a
5 a side game where the locals whooped the altitude sick gringos 12-6!
Later on i dragged gina out of bed to get some food -note to travellers bring your own food as the chicken (which actually tasted like fish) reappeared about 2am for me and continued to make appearances throughout the next day - yummy!!
Anyways we made it back on our boat the next day still feeling rough and met up with our scouse friends again who´d had a vastly more exciting trip than us. Apparently they made it to the south but walked down the wrong side of the hill to a tiny harbour with just 1/2 an hour to get to the other side where the boat was. A stroke of genius hit them and they hired a bolivian dude to row them round to the other side rather than walk up and over. Unfortunately for them the rower was about 60 and started to struggle after a few minutes and the started to panic as their boat was due to leave any minute. The old man struggled on as they saw the boat leave the dock, somehow they managed to stand up on
the wee row boat and hail our boat down and hopped onto it to much applause of the other passengers! Unfortunately no one knows the fate of the old bolivian man left stranded in his rowboat!!
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Jo Harris
non-member comment
No floating reed islands then???
Hola chicas - So you made it back to civilisation after your Inca "trial" as we came to call it. Congrats! Did you not take a trip to one of the floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca? Shame if you didn't as they are amazing and such an experience (spongy surface literally sinking so that they have to lay more and more reeds down to stay afloat! What I imagine walking on the moon to be like...) Sorry to hear you've suffered from Boli(vian) belly. Loads a love, Jo xx