Isla del money!
Trip Start
Feb 10, 2006
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39
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Trip End
Feb 01, 2007
Isla del Sol,
Bolivia
Friday, August 25, 2006
Decided to walk out to the peninsula and catch a boat from there to the south of the island...and here started the whole ¨lets´s rip off tourists¨ saga. A boat price is agreed on only to be changed once we´re out on the water. The boat drops you at a tiny ruin where an entrance fee is demanded as soon as you put a foot on dry land (although the old woman is happy to give you two tickets for the price of one if she gets to pocket the money - very community minded.
We walked round the back of the island and camped high up on the hill. The views were beautiful although it´s very hard to get your head round the fact that you are at about 4000 meters and that huge blue expanse is a lake not the sea
A. Lake Titicaca
. Feels very strange to fill your water bottle up on a beach.We pottered off the next day towards the north of the island and the ruins and sacred rock where the first Inka King appeared from. We paid the entry fee and got a lovely blue ticket in return. What we didn´t know was that the steady flow of tourists to the island has awoken the greedy side of the islanders who are now split in two over how to extract as many dollars as possible from us green gringos. Our blue ticket was no longer valid when we actually reached the museum at the north of the island, apparently we needed a pink ticket - identical in every other way but it must be pink! I got pretty shirty and used my rather large rucksack as ballast to push through the door. And the saga continued with every cute child asking for sweets and every hostel asking for payment in dollars despite the lack of hot water or any sort of luxuries. Gave up on the third day and caught the local boat back (at tourist prices of course - heaven forbid you pay the same as everyone else for the same service!)
