During my last day in Sorata I came down with some pretty bad sickness, maybe food poisoning. This put me out for a good 5 days, leaving me a bit underweight and weak. During that time I still managed to get back to Cochabamba, which took the best part of a day, where Colette was waiting to give me lots of sympathy and attention. Eventually we finished off our loose ends and were ready to leave the city where we'd stayed for a good 2 months. Once again we caught the bus to La Paz, where we stayed for a week, buying presents and shipping two huge parcels home. We stayed in a cheap little hostel near the 'witch market', where rows of stalls sell all your ceremonial needs; coca leaves, incense, colourful sweets, tiny figures and, of course, a selection of llama pheotuses in their various stages of development.
Then we headed to Copacabana, a small town on the shore of lake Titicaca. The journey involved the crossing of a narrow stretch of the lake using a coach 'ferry'. It's a nice place, if a little over done on the tourism front. It feels a bit like a seaside resort with the boats and endless blue of the vast lake; lago Titicaca is South America's largest lake and one of the world's highest navigable lakes, sitting on the border between Bolivia and Peru at 3812 m. We found a really nice room with a great view of the lake for only 15 bolivianos each per night, around a quid forty or so each.
After a couple of nights we caught a boat to the sacred Inca island of the sun - Isla del Sol. I've probably used the word 'stunning' one too many times in my writings on this blog, but I really can't find another word to adequately describe the beauty of the places I've been fortunate enough to visit on this trip. The island is stunningly beautiful. The rich colour of the deep blue water, the immense Illampu glacier on the horizon, the clear air and bright blue sky, and the lack of any paved roads or vehicles make it such a wonderfully tranquil place. The boat drops you off on the south side, which is pretty busy with tourists on half-day or day trips, but once you walk up the hill and over the peak people are few and far between and consist mainly of the scattered 800 or so Aymara or Quechua families which inhabit the island. Once again we found a lovely place to stay, with an awsome view of the distant Illampu. We'd wanted to camp on the island, which can be done safely for free, but in the end the low temperatures were enough to deter us.
Later in the evening we witnessed an impressive 'moon rise' and the reflected yellow light shone across the water and
provided sufficient light for shadows. The next morning we woke up early for sunrise, which could be seen from the comfort of our bed once the curtains were opened. We set off for a walk to the northern end of the island. We wandered through the scenery of a time gone by, passing the brightly clothed locals as they walked their mixed heards of goats, sheep, llamas and pigs along the dusty paths. I'm not quite sure where they were taking the animals, but everywhere we went people were walking their flocks back and fourth, from children of no more than 8 years to women who looked impossibly old, whose weathered faces had endured a life's worth of the island's harsh climate. Donkeys and llamas grazed side by side on the sloped fields above us. Occasionally a walking bush would appear on the horizon and trundle towards us, eventually morphing into an old man or woman hunched over at a right-angle with a huge bundle of harvested bean stalks slung over their back. We passed quiet hamlets where children ran to greet us and people worked harvesting corn or ploughing the fields with a bull-drawn plough. And all without the sound of a single internal combustion engine! Perfect.
Colette became annoyed at my insistance on taking lots of photos of donkeys. She thinks I've developed an obsession. However, I'll be having the last laughs when I return home to jobless situation with an entrepreneurial trick up my sleeve; 'Donkeys of Bolivia' calender 2010 here I come. Only April, August and November left to capture.
Then we headed to Copacabana, a small town on the shore of lake Titicaca. The journey involved the crossing of a narrow stretch of the lake using a coach 'ferry'. It's a nice place, if a little over done on the tourism front. It feels a bit like a seaside resort with the boats and endless blue of the vast lake; lago Titicaca is South America's largest lake and one of the world's highest navigable lakes, sitting on the border between Bolivia and Peru at 3812 m. We found a really nice room with a great view of the lake for only 15 bolivianos each per night, around a quid forty or so each.
After a couple of nights we caught a boat to the sacred Inca island of the sun - Isla del Sol. I've probably used the word 'stunning' one too many times in my writings on this blog, but I really can't find another word to adequately describe the beauty of the places I've been fortunate enough to visit on this trip. The island is stunningly beautiful. The rich colour of the deep blue water, the immense Illampu glacier on the horizon, the clear air and bright blue sky, and the lack of any paved roads or vehicles make it such a wonderfully tranquil place. The boat drops you off on the south side, which is pretty busy with tourists on half-day or day trips, but once you walk up the hill and over the peak people are few and far between and consist mainly of the scattered 800 or so Aymara or Quechua families which inhabit the island. Once again we found a lovely place to stay, with an awsome view of the distant Illampu. We'd wanted to camp on the island, which can be done safely for free, but in the end the low temperatures were enough to deter us.
Later in the evening we witnessed an impressive 'moon rise' and the reflected yellow light shone across the water and
provided sufficient light for shadows. The next morning we woke up early for sunrise, which could be seen from the comfort of our bed once the curtains were opened. We set off for a walk to the northern end of the island. We wandered through the scenery of a time gone by, passing the brightly clothed locals as they walked their mixed heards of goats, sheep, llamas and pigs along the dusty paths. I'm not quite sure where they were taking the animals, but everywhere we went people were walking their flocks back and fourth, from children of no more than 8 years to women who looked impossibly old, whose weathered faces had endured a life's worth of the island's harsh climate. Donkeys and llamas grazed side by side on the sloped fields above us. Occasionally a walking bush would appear on the horizon and trundle towards us, eventually morphing into an old man or woman hunched over at a right-angle with a huge bundle of harvested bean stalks slung over their back. We passed quiet hamlets where children ran to greet us and people worked harvesting corn or ploughing the fields with a bull-drawn plough. And all without the sound of a single internal combustion engine! Perfect.Colette became annoyed at my insistance on taking lots of photos of donkeys. She thinks I've developed an obsession. However, I'll be having the last laughs when I return home to jobless situation with an entrepreneurial trick up my sleeve; 'Donkeys of Bolivia' calender 2010 here I come. Only April, August and November left to capture.
We reached the north side and checked into another cute place at a bargain price.
After a read and doze on the beach we walked to the Inca ruins right near the northern tip and watched another gorgeous sunset. This is the kind of place we could have stayed for a week. But we had reached the 89th day of our 90 day visa for Bolivia, so after getting up for a final sunrise, we reluctantly caught the boat back to Copacabana to get ready to cross the border to Peru.
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