En Route to La Isla Del Sol
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2006
1
33
Trip End
Sep 04, 2007
Copacabana,
Bolivia
Monday, August 20, 2007
With that being decided, I chose to come to Bolivia and do some wandering around the world's highest lake, Lago Titicaca. I bypassed the day-tour operators from Copacabana and decided to walk as far as I could around the lake until I came to a point where I could hire a row-boat to go across the last leg to the island. The village, Nampupata, is only about a stone's throw from the island and there were a couple of old men sitting around in lawn chairs that offered up their boats.
GIANT lake!
The walk was entertaining. My first compaņera was a little girl from the village about a kilometer or 2 up the road. She showed me which of the cows, sheep and llamas in the fields belonged to her family and each of the homes of her extended family members. Her Aymara/Spanish mix of language gave me a little bit of trouble, but we communicated well enough and she went along her way to go help her mother cook lunch.
An hour or so later I came across a fork in the road where my instructions told me to turn left. A family, protected by the shade of the forest, was seated there in the grass and appeared to be enjoying a lazy Sunday morning by the brook. I smiled at the family and continued with my unclear directions. I just decided to take off in what seemed like the right direction- towards the water.
About 10 minutes down the road, however, the man who had been seated with his 3children caught up to me and asked me where I was going. "Nampupata," I said. He smiled and told me that I was going the wrong way and I needed to turn around or I would run into cliffs and would have to turn around in an hour or so. I figured that he didn't chase me out here for his health, so I believed him
lakeside beauty
. Then he offered to show me the right way. As we walked he explained to me that he and his family sit here and watch for people walking by so they can show them the right way. Otherwise, he said, they the come back from the cliffs after 2 hours and are exhausted. I gave him a little tip for his kindness and bid him goodbye when he showed me to the right trail that now had become an old Inca stairwell.When I finally made it up the stairwell (I stopped several times due to my general lack of physical shape and the fact that I was at over 3500 mtrs altitude) I was surrounded by spectacular views of the lake and a heavenly solitude that was only interrupted for brief moments by a grazing sheep's baaa or a squealing pig.
Eventually I made it to Nampupata and found myself a rower and a rowboat for about $3. It would have been nice to do it myself but I guess it's better that way seeing as how I was pretty tired after my little hike that lasted 5 hours... And we made pretty good time seeing as how the poor guy had to row into the wind for most of it.
On the other side of the lake we realized that he didn't have change for my whopping $100 Boliviano note (about $12) so we had to wait as another boat was approaching that hadleft about 15 minutes after us
me on my birthday :)
. As luck would have it, the boat carried another traveler, Duane the digerey-doo playing Frenchman, who did, in fact have enough change for the both of us so I was let off the hook.We were met by a 10 year old local boy who showed us to his aunt's lodging. She gave us a good deal so we settled into our rooms and went for a "little" walk around the island. Of course it started to get dark and neither of us had bothered to notice the name of the little huts where we were staying. So we wandered aimlessly for a couple of hours asking shop and restaurant owners that were beginning to close up if they knew where the "little stone houses with donkeys out front and a view of the lake" (you can imagine how many of those there are on the island!). Just when I was starting think about how cold and windy it would be to sleep outside, Duane and the newest shop owner involved in our ridiculous quest had an epiphany and realized that we were no further than 100 meters from our rooms. It was a bit hidden off the road, but we only had to go downhill a bit.
My life had meaning again and we walked down the hill to find our rooms. A few minutes later we met in the restaurant for some delicious rosy pink trout and our silly little adventure became nothing more than a couple of laughs.
