Isle de Sol - sunshine, lightening, getting lost
Trip Start
Sep 22, 2006
1
9
13
Trip End
Dec 2006
Coppacabana,
Bolivia
Friday, November 17, 2006
We got up early to spend the day walking the length of Isle del Sol but our plans were initally held up by a two hour wait for breakfast, caused by a combination of burst pipes and incapacitated kitchen staff
A stallholder at Copacabana
. This is still Bolivia so rule number one is do not have any pre existing expections or timescales, number two everything is likely to change.As we sat waiting on the little boat we had hired we watched a Bolivian wedding party making its way across the beach to clamber into the small boat beside us for the obligatory photos. The bride in a big white merangue number and heels looked extremely precarious as she teetered along the slippery gang plank. We got our cameras ready, just in case...
Once we arrived on the sandstone Isle de Sol there were fantastic views out over Lake Titicaca and a number of stone ruins aswell as 3 or 4 indian villages to wander through. We had lunch on the beach before continuing our walk past families ploughing by hand and tending their terraced plots, through narrow alleys between adobe huts, stepping over the occassional sow with litters of piglets clamped to their nipples.
As there are no maps or sign posts on the island it is actually relatively easy to take the wrong paths. I got separated from some of my companions after a couple of us stopped to take out some coca leaves to chew on. All in all though it was a pleasant day
Across Lake Titicaca
. Until we got to the beach where the boat was collecting us....As we waited it soon became clear that two of the group had obviously got lost. One was an 18 year old girl, Harri, who had only just joined the trip in La Paz, the other was the most accident prone individual I have ever come across who should have had "liability" tatooed on his forehead. After a 2 hour wait during which time several people had retraced steps, shouting the names of the pair, we realised that someone would have to stay overnight on the island and hopefully find them in the morning. For those of us that were to return to Coppacabana though there was the more worrying prospect of a 2hr return boat ride in complete darkness. Normally the boats refuse to sail at night as none of them are equipped with any form of lighting. On this occasion our driver agreed. As we set out the sun had already disappeared behind the horizon and in the direction we were heading we could see ominous black clouds. As we headed out further into the water the tiny boat started to list precariously and we got rolling views below us of the water and then above us of the blackening sky. As it got darker it got colder and the rain started to come in sideways. Just my luck I thought, they´ve probably got a new cleaning lady up at the church and knowing nothing of the myths of damnation and flooding, she´s moved that dusty looking old virgin to give her a good clean and have her sparkling like new in a jiffy....
Gone to get mums shopping list
. As the lightening started to come down around us I began looking out to islands that we passed with distant twinkling lights on their hillsides. My mind was not eased by the dwindling jerry can of diesel that the driver was draining into the outboard and forelornly peering into as if thinking, "Now I´m sure I put more in there than that". I began to calculate how far the huts were from us and the probability of me swimming ashore if we get struck by lightening or ran out of fuel. I kept telling myself that the predominantly wooden structure of the boat would rule out a lightening strike and if I swam ashore the uphill walk to the lights in the cold Bolivian night would mean that hypothermia would probably get to me first. It was the longest boat ride ever and the lights of our destination twinkled tantilisingly in the distance for an interminable amount of time. Most of the group sat in silence on the journey, each of us it later turned out was eying the lights on the islands and making the same calculations that I was. Except for one of the group. John has been to Titicaca before. Except last time he came his boat hit another boat in the dark and sank. He was as he admitted, shitting bricks. I guess all in all were were pretty lucky.
Oh by the way, the couple who got lost turned up the next morning. Tired, fed up and wanting a shower, but with an interesting story and a start to 18 year old Harri´s gap year trip that she wasn´t keen to tell her parents about just yet. We were slightly later leaving Coppacabana that morning than we had planned
