28.11.10

Isla de Sol / Lake Titicaca

On Saturday morning, 28.11.10 I took a motor boat to the ISLA DE SOL on LAKE TITICACA. The trip to the north of the island took 2 ½ hours. My plan was to hike from the north to the south which are approx. 12 km and break it up at the village called "Cha'lla" where I would stay overnight.

But on the highest point at 4.032m I met the German girl Lydia who was only doing the day trip on the Isla de Sol. She was telling me a lot about Buenos Aires where she studied for 4 months. As her stories were quite interesting I continued walking with her to the south of the island until the little village

We stopped a lot during the hike. First of all because the hike was much harder than I thought. We started the hike in Challapampa at 3.900m and went up to 4.065m. Even though that it sounds easy but the 4.000m altitude and my 10kg backpack on my back made the trek quite tough for me.

After 3 ½ hours we arrived inYumani where Lydia and I exchanged email addresses and said "Tschuess"! I went to several places to find a bed for the night. At the third hostal I paid 30 Bolivianos (4,50 USD) and went straight over to the neighbour where I saw a sign for "almuerzo" (Mittagstisch). The senioria wasn't really happy when I asked her first as I disturbed her in the middle of her "siesta" and the only meal she could offer me was "trout" which I was very happy with. Whilese I was sitting outside enjoying my trout more and more tourist came and ask me about my meal. Most of them were sent away at other restaurants because of the siesta.

Back at my little, family run hostal I wanted to take a shower. When I checked in the owner told me that they have hot water for 24 hours but not when I was standing in the shower. So I put on my cloth again and went outside to check with the owner. He told me that there was no electricity for the last 5 hours on the whole island. Well…I thought, why you didn't tell me that before when I asked you for some soap. So I went back to my room and had a nap instead.

So for the rest of the night and the other morning there was still no electricity. For dinner everybody had difficulties to find a restaurant that was willing to serve us some food. Finally after the 3rd restaurant we found a tiny place where a seniora warmed up some of her "Quinoa Soup" on her gas stove and quite a few travellers were sitting around a big table with candle light….which was actually quite romantic.

At about 9pm I decided to go to bed and went to the bathroom which was on the other side of the house. When I returned to my room in the dark I couldn't find my key. First I thought I lost it on the ground but quite quickly I realized that I left it in my room.

I knocked everywhere to find the owners of the house but nobody appeared. Jesus….I was so upset about me! As I didn't have a choice I walked up to another hostal but on the way I met a local seniora and asked her if she knows the owner of my hostal. Thank God she did and showed me a door underneath the house where the owners where living. I knocked and it took a while until the owner appeared. With my little Spanish I explained what happened and soon she returned with a spare key of my room. Puuhh…..again I couldn't believe how lucky I was.

The other morning I was woken up by rain at 6am. Wow this was the first rain in nearly 6 weeks and it sounded quite nice when it was dropping on the metal roof. Unfortunately there wasn't a sunrise because of the rain and I decided to stay in bed until 7am.

Later on I had a basic continental breakfast and then walked down to the port to catch the first boat back to Copacabana at 10.30am. On the trip back I met an Argentinian guy and a German girl who recommended me a place to stay in LA PAZ.

So when I arrived in Copa I decided to go straight to LA PAZ (the biggest city in Bolivia), bought a ticket, picked up my back at the hostal, had a bite to eat and left Copacaban at 1.30pm.