Isla del Sol

As promised a text in English..

After a loud, chaotic and tiring weekend in Oruro we decided that our next trip should be slightly more relaxing and quiet...
The Isla del Sol = Island of the Sun is located in the Titicacasee where there is also a town called Copacabana. Everytime I said this I had to think of the song My name is Copa, Copacabana lalalala....Unfortunately Andres didnt know the song but i gave him a fine demonstration of it ;) the great thing about this place is that it is not far from La Paz- about 2.5 hours to Copacabana by bus and boat. We left on a Saturday morning and started our journey with our favourite biscuits of all time (we must have eaten tons of them during my time in Bolivia) called FRAC- absolutely delish! After about 1.5 hours drive the view started to get really amazing and as soon as the Titicacasee was in sight I couldnt help but look out of the window..A lovely deep blue coloured, open water with numerous islands in sight. It was a great day aswell, sunny and warm.
Our bus then stopped and requested all passengers to get off. I naturally thought we had already arrived in Copacabana but I was infact wrong. We had to take a little boat across to a different island. The bus went over on a vehicle carrier still with all our belongings in, was weird watching it go across actually..we arrived on another island and then it was about another half hour drive to the seaside-town of Copacabana. The name does itself justice- it is a chilled, sunny place with the smell of fish and water in the air. Everythings very colourful and with the heat and music the beach-holiday vibe is achieved. On top of this there were still some carneval celebrations going on- so more loud music and colourful costumes..(we didnt particularly need to see more of that but it was ok..)
Anyway we arrived hoping to get straight to the Isla del Sol by boat as we had booked a hostel there for 2 nights. Completely relaxed we asked when the next boat was going out to the island. The time then was about 3pm. We then had to hear from about 10 people that the last boat had left at 1.30pm and that the next one would be in the morning of the following day..We looked for other options to get across, did get a very expensive offer from one lady who was going across with her private boat but we worked out it would be much cheaper to stay in a hostel in Copacabana, get to know the town a bit more and leave early the next morning. We were quickly happy as we found a nice hostel where we payed 50Bs for one night, two people, so about 10 francs. The room was on an upper floor with view over the beautiful lake and had a bathroom- albeit a not very nice one, but enough for us. We dumped our things and went off to have a wander around the town. Andres has been there a few times so he showed me around. Its a very small town but pretty with an amazing big white church in the centre. There we met a funny little boy who felt like posing in an unusual way for my photographs- see pics. Hilarious!
After we had eaten, wondered around the markets where we bought ourselves a souvenir colourful bracelet and done all the sightseeing one can do in Copacabana we went back to our room, had a quick nap, took enough clothes layers with us and a hat and left for our trek up the mountain :) On the top of this mountain are situated many religious symbols- a ruin made out of stone and rocks with a holy cross. During the day many people gather there to pray and of course its full of tourists- for the inhabitants its a sort of sacred mountain. It was quite a steep walk to the top but it was worth it- the sight was amazing- evening sky with stars and moonlight overlooking the town as well as the lake and it was dead silent up there- really impressive.
After our hike we returned to our hostel, had a very long snooze and then went to have some delish fajitas in a restaurant which otherwise was totally empty and with a waiter who was very tired and desperately wanted to go home and sleep..(it was 23pm) we made sure we didnt take too long :)

8.30 next morning our boat left to the island. We made sure we wouldnt miss this one. Already the boat trip over there was amazing. We did also notice how the number of tourists was getting bigger and bigger- obviously as Copacabana is very touristy..We floated onto the sort-of beach of the south side of the islandand disembarqued. Right there by the coast was a tiny restaurant where all tourists seemed to sit down and drink or eat and mainly wonder about where they were going to find a hostel. Luckily me and Andres had already booked a room in one of the roughly 5 hostels on the island. Eventhough we were dead tired we fought our way up the steep hill and found our hostel which was nicely cosy and had a great view of the lake and islands. It was still wuite early in the morning so we thought wed have a quick nap. After that we looked for brunch. The lady looking after the hotel- a typical bolivian-looking woman with long black plaits tied back, a black round hat and colourful clothing told us she could not serve us any food (she normally cooks the food for all the guests) so we looked for a different place. Not surprisingly there wasnt much choice. We only found one place which was a hostel as well as a restaurant and met there an extremely unfriendly woman. Andres had to force her basically to make us a ham and cheese sandwich and a hot chocolate each. She refused to make anything else. This sort of rudeness i did see quite a lot in Bolivia- people who are supposed to be friendly and serve you but when you ask something its like you have offended them in some way, very annoying. I told Andres if i had been able to speak more Spanish i definetely would have said something. Andres did anyway. Our sandwiches and hot chocolates were pretty good and we sat on chairs made of tree trunks with an amazing view in front of us and the sound of donkeys crying every now and then, very weird sound..
We afterwards thought wed stroll around the island and look for the ruins we had already bought tickets for. The walk was great and the further we went the more amazing the view was. We did though wonder where the hell the ruins where. The island is very big but we were told that they were not too far away. We found a sort of bundle of stoned looking slightly like ruins but they were definetely not the ones we were looking for. Further down we saw a small beach with wooden bridges built for the touristy boats that come by and stop for a while. This is where we spent our afternoon lying in the sun, listening to music, chatting and eating more FRAC :)
It was so relaxing and just the thing to do on the island if you dont want to walk or look for ruins..
just as the sun went down we left and walked back to our hostel which we realised was a very long way away.
When we got back we chilled more in our room, reading, snoozing, chatting and at some point realised we were quite hungry again. We left the hostel thinking we could eat in one of the few restaurants but oh dear that thought was very wrong- we walked outside and everything was pitch black- all restaurants closed. To note the time it was only about 8pm. Oh well we returned and were damn happy our 'mamasita' could cook us some food. We did have to wait about an hour though as she had to cook for four other people- a lot of work for one woman plus she did the cleaning and everything. Also very strange was she couldnt speak a word of English which is weird for a Hostelling International hostel where only foreigners come in..anyway we were fine :) our supper was pretty good infact and we chatted shortly to some of the other people staying and then went to bed. The Isla is beautiful and on that day the sun had been shining greatly- exactly that though was very tiring plus the walking so we were happy to sleep..

The next morning there was slush on the ground. There had been a storm in the night, it had cooled down a lot and actually hailed- very weird. We walked down to catch our boat and met a horrific sight. unfortunately all the tourists had decided to go on the same boat as us. I know i am a tourist as well but it did feel different with Andres. So this tiny boat arrived for about 40 people and of course there are no limits or exact rules of how many people can fit in a vehicle of public transport in Bolivia so everyone came on with their heavy rucksacks of about 20kg each! The boat sank down into the water a scary amount but the engine started and the driver still had a smile on his face so off we went! veery slowly though..It was quite a fun atmosphere though- people got their cameras out (me 2 :) ) and took pictures because it was a very funny situation. Everyone was cramped in plus it was hot and this for 1.5 hours! We fought our way through it and arrived back in Copacabana around 12.30pm. The next bus we could get tickets for was at 4pm so we chilled some more, sat in a cafe, had a nice jugo- fruit juice, bought me a hat because i though my already burnt skin was going to fry and went to a restaurant to have some pizza before going on the bus. In this restaurant there were a few peculiar things. When one walked inside it was like walking into a familys home- sitting room with TV on and kids playing, then kitchen where members of the family were cooking..outside there was a kind of tent formation on the floor with a baby inside which at some point started crying and I actually got really annoyed because it took the mum about half an hour to come and comfort it..then the ashtrays that were skullheads saying death on them- dont think the restaurant was too keen on smokers..and the sign in front of the restaurant that was written in 'English'- very funny. After filling our tummies in this rather special place we left a beautiful quite, peaceful and sunny place for the chaotic, poluted, weird-weathered but fun La Paz...