Lake Titikaka and the Island of the Sun

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  Isla de la sole, Bolivia
Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Dan - sorry they´re coming thick and fast now but weñre pretty much up to date now! This happend last week.

We were due to leave lapaz with our new found friends as a 5some, but after a little language mix up resulting in some lovely bolivian weoman practucally converscating our laundry we had to settle for one more night in the loki hostel bumming around and drinking cheep beer (such a shame!). We agreed to meet the other dudes in copacopbana, on the bolivian side of lake titikaka (try to make fun of that one wise guy) the next day. We caught our bus all on our own and, after only a little delay of 4 hours, arrived  at the "ambassidors hostel" in copacopbana (not the famous one the one on the shaw of the lake) at around 8 at night. No ferrero roches to be found and instead a kind of huge empty hotel with snappy bolivian staff, we dumped our luggage and went out for dinner, ending up scoring a not so delicious pizza

Boat to the Island.

. Im sure you find it facinating to find  out exactly what we eat week in week out in these blogs, in bolivia it tended to be badly made pizzas or salty snacks with too much cheese and not enough anything else. (for updates on stool consistancy please PM us, this is a family blog)
Anyway, me and jim found our friends (james, paula and stencil) in a pub and had a few drinks before quickly being told what the agenda for the next day was. Overall this is good for us, being with 3 fluent spanish speaking brits not only speeds up everything we do, (e.g. buying a bus ticket generally takes me and jim 3 hours, apparently if you can spoeak the lingo its a 5 minute job!). So anyway, yes, being with the kind of driven tourists who, for whatever reason, see spending the day  in the pub as a bit of waste meant that we actually got a lot done! The next moring, at 7 stinking am, we were woken by our new go-getting friends to be told we were catching a boat to the ´"Island of the sun" in half  hour and needed to go buy tickets. Th Isla del sole, which is the main island on lake titikaka and famed for being where the incas considered the sun to be born was quite a way considering this was a bloody lake and not a sea! I dunno, though, maybe, just maybe, if the Incas spent a little more time building guns and shilds and a little less worshipping/trying to destroy the sun they wouldnt of being overrun by the spannish in about 2 weeks flat - there. i said it. Someone needed too). Again i digress....so anyway yes, the island of the sun consisted of the worse boat journey we have ever been on, it honestly felt like crossing the north sea, there me and jim were in our tshirts and flip flips on top of the boat (all the seats inside were taken) and after ten minutes the rain started falling and the wind blowing. Luckilly a bolivian woman took pitty on the freezing gringos and gave us her sleeeping bag to huddle under, so there we stayed, in our own mini fort, for an hour playing that movie star game where you have to name an actor that stared in the same film as the previous actor and so on, until finally we made it to the island an hour and a half later

Dan and a well thumbed lonely planet

!
The weather soon perked up, rainly season here, seems to me to mean that whenever you need it least to rain, (e.g. when treking up a mountain, or are stuck on top of a boat - it will) and we did a really cool trek across the island to some more incian ruins and stuff. Those incians sure did know how to do a good ruin.. then back to main town part bit of the island where we found a hostel for 2.50 pounds sterling a night. Which was a pretty good deal for us!
Thast night was amazing, the island feels really cut off ands has minimal creature comforts, we didnt have running water and holed up in our room with the guys playing cards and having a few beers, before a monster storm set in. The hostel luckilly had a balcony right on the lake front and we went out there to watch the most amazing electric storm lighting up the whole sky on the lake! Before we got too cold to stand it any more and retreated back to the dorm to play some weird jewish card game that im sure paula was making the rules up to as she went along. It may have been called lord Yarin....
The next day, again being harried from our normal slumber from the others we were pushed back on the boat, this time a little more prepared and trasported back to copacobana, before catching another bus to Puno and then on to overnight bus to cuzco. Managing a booat ride, 3 towns and a bourder crossing into peru in about the time me and jim would normally take to decide if to have chips or mash with our lama steak.
 
So yes, we made it to peru all together and with the inca trail to come we needed to get in shape. No deer for a month. Thats our rule.....
 
Love etc.
 
D&J
xxxx

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Jims dinner,.	Lake Titicaca	Posed. a bit.	Shriek and Donkey on another whirlwind adventure.
The gang	The Island of the Sun ruins.	You gotta do it..... havent you?

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