One Way United

We left La Paz behind to see a legendary place enriched in history.  A place where people dream of going but never do.  A place that screams adventure.  A place called Lake Titicaca.  This gigantic lake on the Bolivia-Peru border is where the mighty Incan empire began and today is a place where tourism and the old ways mix and mingle to form a new ever changing identity to this sacred lake.

We arrived late at night to a town called Copocobana.  There seem to be as many tourists as locals in this town.  For some this town is simply a stopover before heading to Puno or Cusco in Peru, but most come to this town to see Isla Del Sol (Sun Island).  According to Incan legend, the sun was born there and from a rock on this lsland, rose their first emperor.  Adam, Julian, and I of course were there, like every other tourist, to explore this island.

While most tourists take a tour straight from Copocabana, we elected to hike 10 miles to a small town closer to Isla Del Sol and take a boat from there.  We packed really light and carried our sleeping bags with the intent of sleeping two nights under the stars on the island.  We got a late start to our hike, not leaving until 12:30.  There were many locals we encountered on our walk and we made an effort to say greet every single one of them.  Some seemed really thrilled to greet us while some simply looked at the ground and muttered a quick hola.  There seems to be mixed feelings about gringos.  Tourists bring in a lot of money to these otherwise poor towns but some also seem to resent these visitors who are changing their way of life. 

I felt a great sense of adventure as we arrived to our first village after an hour of walking.  There were no cars on the road we hiked on and not a sign of another gringo anywhere.  It felt like we were the first gringos to come across this remote village in the middle of nowhere although in the back of mind I knew that gringos probably walk this stretch everyday.  There was livestock everywhere and we saw women working out in the fields, men fishing on the lake, and for once it felt like we had found a village still untouched by the ever growing effects of tourism.

We continued on and came across a few similar villages along this same road.  We talked with a few people and at one instance village workers asked us if we could spare some water.  We obliged and for a few minutes we were not sure if we would get our water back.  Finally a man gave back the water with hardly any left.  We hiked on, over hills (which are surpringly tough at 13000 feet), and down into a valley where another village sat.  We stopped and rested there for a few minutes because Adam was not feeling well.  He ended up throwing up and became the last victim of the phantom infection that swept through our group. 

As we were leaving this town, a man came up and introduced himself and said he had a boat and could take us to the island for 15 bolivianos each (less than $2).  We were still a few miles from the town we intended on walking to but with Adam being sick, we decided to take his offer.  This man, Enrique, was a stud.  The boat he owned was a canoe.  He rowed an hour and a half straight.  On the lake, I could see many boats in the distance.  Some were canoes, some were simple motor boats, and some were huge tourist ferries.  It was a perfect picture of the old ways and new ways coming together. 

He docked on some random rock on the southern part of the island.  He pointed a direction to where the town was and rowed away.  We watched as he rowed farther and farther into the distance, wondering how this man could row 3 hours straight with no breaks.  We hiked up a hill and toward the direction Enrique pointed.  We needed to find the town since we had packed no food, planning on finding something on the island.  During our walk, we met another guy heading the same direction as us who ended up acting as our guide for the next half hour.  He was walking with his pig and his children who were herding the sheep.  He pointed us to where different places were, showed us which leaves were used in Mate, and led us to the village.

This village is located on the top of the ridge and from what we saw, is the biggest and most touristical town on the island.  We ate at a restaurant as the sun was setting and then went to buy snacks from a little store.  Little girls were in charge of the store and we had a lot of fun bargaining with them.  They had trouble adding up prices and had to count out load to figure out how much we owed them.  The price of our goods was 50 bolivianos.  One arrived at 46 while the other claimed it was 47.  Julian and I patiently waited and helped them add it up to the correct amount while Adam vomited in the background.

Adam decided there was no way he was going to sleep outside being that sick so we found him a hostel, made sure the guy in charge understood his condition, and then Julian and I started hiking down to the other side of the island to find a beach to sleep on.  The sun had completely set at this point but there was a full moon that night which gave us plenty of light to see.  We lost the trail at some point and ended up dodging llamas and mud holes on our way to the beach.  To our dissapointment, the beach was not sandy.  We walked up and over a bouldery hill to another beach but this one was littered with junk.  Julian sat on the beach as I scouted for another place to sleep.  We were both completely exhausted at this point after our long day of walking up and down hills.  I climbed up this steep hill and on the top I found the perfect sleeping spot.  This bluff was nice and flat and had a beautiful view of the lake.  I went back down and Julian grudgingly agreed to climb up to check this place out.  We set up our sleeping bags and laid down under the annoyingly bright full moon.  As I laid there, utterly exhausted, I wondered what the next day would bring.  Little did I know the most interesting night was yet to come.

 BY THE WAY, THERE ARE NEW PICTURES FROM LAKE TITICACA!

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