Blogpost 8 LaPaz - lake Titicaca
We arrived back in La Paz after yet another small delay. Delays seem to be part of the deal when flying in Bolivia.
We had an interesting few days back in La Paz. The Altitude got to me again but Gaye was all right. We weren’t expecting it to hit us again as we had been a high altitude for quite a while and you don’t loose the benefits that fast. However Anna said when she returned to La Paz from Rurrenabaque it had the same affect on her.
Despite that and frequent loo visits we had a good few days checking out their city.
On Friday it was an early start again and off to the bus station to catch the bus to Lake Titicaca. The bus stations are amazing with dozens and dozens of buses heading in all sorts of directions. There are a a lot of fancy overnight busses with sleeper beds and fancy recliner seats. We plan to catch one in 2 days time so lets hope they are ok.
Lake Titicaca is not full of reads with read boats bobbing around. Quite the contrary. The lake is the highest significant body of Water in the world at 12,500 feet. It’s as clear as Lake Taupo and extends as far as the horizon in some directions.
We arrived at the lake at Copacabana. You might remember the name in the 70’s Barry Manilow hit but he was referring to a night club in New York.
We caught a local ferry out to Isla Del Sol (Island of the Sun). It’s an amazing place with small villages dotted around the hills and bays but at a number of the towns have a a large number of smal hotels and hostels. The hills rise steeply from the waters edge and many of the hostels are high up on the hills and carting your bags to them would be a real challenge. By fluke I managed to book one only about 50m above the lake level and only 5 minutes walk from the ferry.
The locals use mules to cart there wares up the steep paths but this service does not seem to extend to tourist bags. There are no roads on the island so all the transport is either by water or on foot.
We caught a boat to the northern end of the Island and low and behold there was a few rewards there. We expected to see a lot of read boats floating around the lake but there are any where we are. Maybe we will see then when qe cross into Peru on their other side of the lake.
Our walk took us up past small primitive farming communities with terraced fields not growing too much at this time of year. It’s very dry right now. It’s at about 4000m which must affect the growing season too.
After about 30 minutes we arrived at some notable ruins. We are not sure if they are from Tewanaku or Inka times. There was a maze of stone walls - the Chincana ruins. According to legends this site was where the sun made it first appearance.
Leaving the ruins behind we then proceeded along the main ridge that runs the length of the island. The views from the ridge along both sides of the island were just amazing. We got back to the hostel after the 11km walk feeling like we had had a really good day.
Today, Sunday, we had a lazy start then headed back up the hill to walk towards the southern end of the island. A much shorter walk of only 8 km. We stopped at the top looking out towards Peru and had a long sit with a beer in hand. It’s a good spot to watch the sunset from but it was going to get cold and late if we had waited so it was back to our hostel for dinner.
The island is very quiet. There are hardly any tourists around. A lot of places appear to be shut. The poor locals trying to sell local souvenirs must be finding it really tough.
Tomorrow we head to Peru by boat, bus and a night sleeper bus
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Hope the ministry to your interiors is working well!
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