Early one Puno morning, I was shuttled by minibus out to the bus station where a retro old bus filled completely with foreigners set off for Copacabana and the Bolivian frontera. The journey was short and sweet, skirting around the edge of the Lake, the morning sun scattering blue sparkles across its suface. I met a Gothic Metal band from Mexico on this bus. Really nice people. They were en-route to La Paz for show two of their vast three-date South American tour, having just played the previous night in Lima. "Sleep, who needs sleep?" they joked. The sun was shining and people were smiling. Welcome to Bolivia, I thought. It felt like I was finally leaving behind the occaisonally ugly vibe of Peru and entering a better place. Consequently, I felt pretty damn good.
My first stop in Bolivia proper, and a place imbued with the magical creation myths of the Incas was the Isla Del Sol, or Island of the Sun. The Incas believe that the first Inca, Manco Kapac, emerged from the Island as well as the Sun god Inti. They also believe the Sun was reborn out of the waters of the Lake. Whatever the legends, I felt it to be a pretty powerful and stunningly beautiful place. The light was certainly fantastic here and my little replacement Lumix performed really well.
These days the main industry in tourism, however many of the 800 families or so that inhabit the island still practice fishing and farming as I would later observe on an off-path ramble.
To get there, you board a tiny little boat at the docks in Copacabana filled with bulging rucksacks and other backpackers. The boat made its way slowly across the Lake, reaching the tiny harbour of Yumani where you are met with the undeniably difficult task of hauling your increasingly weighty pack up the Escalera Del Inca, a stone stairway that goes pretty much straight up to the to of the hill. You are already at a rather high altitude as the lake itself sits at 3812m, and this was one tough walk, but I summoned up some strength and pushed onwards to my hostel reccomendation, Inti Kala, which just so happened to be on the other side of the hill! A nice and tranquil place, despite the slightly immature staff, it had gorgeous views acros the lake to Peru though and I sat down with a well deserved beer on their terrace to take it all in.
I spent three days here soaking in the beautiful landscapes and walking across the Island, on a clear day you could see the snow-capped mountains rising majestically in the distance. On one of the these walks I met a local lady herding her donkeys along the shores of a small inlet, she was really nice and thinking I was lost told me how to get back to the path (people generally don´t wander from the main North\South route across the ridge). Of course I just wandered where the wind took me, pausing to skip stones with three local kids who came past with their cow. They sang really distinctive songs at the top of their voices that could be heard from the top of the next valley, echoing across the scrub.
The Island is definitely immersed in the tourist trade and in the main settlement it seems every house operated as a restaurant or cafe. Yet, if you walk a little out of the way, up to the top of a hill decorated with effigies, you are rewarded with panormamic vistas all around. You feel like you are on top of the world. Or head down to a quiet bay to watch the famers going about their day and you won´t see other tourists. Its such a quiet, simple existence and the ambience was very calming and focusing. Just the place I needed to be after the ups and downs of Peru.
Next: Getting to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world and biking down the "Death Road".
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