Isla Del Sol
Feeling great about eschewing tour boats. Hiked 17km from Copacobana to Yumpupata on a beautiful road (after the bit right out of town with the pigs foraging in a river of refuse). Met an odd Peruvian on the trail who I walked the rest of the way with. He turned out to be a marathon runner from the other side of Lake Titicaca. I was slightly concerned he was going to rob me as he kept looking up and down the trail. In the end we had a pleasant enough conversation in Spanish for 2 hours and I was happy for the company.
At the port we had a strange haggling experience - not only did they want B70 to start with (I had offered B20), they refused to let me join a boat with a french couple that was just leaving (I thought at first the explanation was that the boat was too small, but then found out they expected each 'party' that arrived to hire a different boat). Fortunately when another Brit arrived we were eventually able to have them row us over to the Isla Del Sol for B15 each, and once the oarsman got puffed out he offered to switch on the motor for another B5.
The views from Isla are stunning, with the deep blue lake surrounding it and snow-capped mountains in the distance and sleepy little coves with a solitary rowboat waiting for a fisherman to come along. I stayed in a cozy hotel on the south end of the island watching the sunset and in the morning hiked to the north end of the island where I missed the last ferry so I had to stay another night and take an early ferry back the next morning.
All in all, a vastly more relaxing and rewarding experience than the islands on the Peruvian side of the lake.
At the port we had a strange haggling experience - not only did they want B70 to start with (I had offered B20), they refused to let me join a boat with a french couple that was just leaving (I thought at first the explanation was that the boat was too small, but then found out they expected each 'party' that arrived to hire a different boat). Fortunately when another Brit arrived we were eventually able to have them row us over to the Isla Del Sol for B15 each, and once the oarsman got puffed out he offered to switch on the motor for another B5.
The views from Isla are stunning, with the deep blue lake surrounding it and snow-capped mountains in the distance and sleepy little coves with a solitary rowboat waiting for a fisherman to come along. I stayed in a cozy hotel on the south end of the island watching the sunset and in the morning hiked to the north end of the island where I missed the last ferry so I had to stay another night and take an early ferry back the next morning.
All in all, a vastly more relaxing and rewarding experience than the islands on the Peruvian side of the lake.
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