Isla del Sol

From La Paz I drove north to Copacabana to take a boat to Isla del Sol which is supposedly where the first Inka king was born. I did not make it there the same day so I stayed for the night on the shores of lake Titicaca.

It was a bit overcast but you could see the high (>6000m) mountains of the Andes in the distance.

The next day I had to take a barge over the bay to get to Copacabana. Anyone taking this way to Peru also has to go via the barges. On both shores there is a huge amount of ferries waiting for passengers so the bandwidth on the bay is very high and there is no waiting lines.

Copacabana

Copacabana (not to be confused with the more popular travel destination in Brazil) is a small beach town with mostly restaurants and cafes along the shoreline. At the pier many captains are waiting for travelers going to Isla del Sol. I came too late to take the official ferry so I had to go with one of the old captains. The captain said we needed to wait for some more passengers and that he already had 3 people booked. After waiting for almost 3 hours I ran out of patience and we finally went – with only 2 other passengers that booked after me. The other 2 were a Swiss girl called Chrystelle and a French guy called André. I hung out with them for the next couple of days and took them with me in the car to Peru later.

Finally on the boat going to Isla del Sol.

On the island you are greeted by these Inca statues and a very tall set of stairs that you need to take to get to the hotels. Luckily my backpack was fairly light.

Some Alpaccas being shepherded through the town.

Restaurant El Candela

For dinner we went to a place called El Candela (The Candle) which is almost exclusively illuminated by candles and which is famous for their trucha frita (fried trout). The fish was indeed really good.

Trucha Frita – Fried trout in mint sauce with quinoa and steamed vegetables.

Hiking the Island

The next day we took a boat to the northern part of the island from where we visited the Inka ritual site and hiked back south. There was a small village there that had lots of animals and a school. When we passed the school the children were on break and played with the animals.

Return to Copacabana

Back in the southern part of the island we came just in time for the ferry back to Copacabana. Before boarding the boat I burned my last bolivianos on some generic alpaca clothes that they sell absolutely everywhere.

Before returning to the coast the ferry stops at the templo del sol (sun temple) which was my first encounter with the impressive Inka architecture. Here they did not use the style without mortar that they are famous for but it is still a sophisticated construction.

Back in Copacabana I went to buy a coffee I still had to drive to Puno in Peru the same day.

André, Christelle and I crossed the border around 7pm (they close at 8) without too much trouble and drove to Puno. Very noticeable was that even it was just 8pm the towns looked almost deserted. Almost all shops – except the odd minimarket – was closed and the quality of the buildings was not much better than it had been in El Alto: bad. That and that the border guards had told us that there was supposedly a protest scheduled for the next day made us a bit weary about staying in Puno. Originally I wanted to see the reed islands that the indigenous people build but we erred on the side of caution and left the next day – much to the annoyance of the lady who owned the hostel. André stayed in Puno because he was scheduled to stay with a local family. But Christelle and I continued on to Arequipa.