Isla del Sol

Hey All,

Another day, another adventure. Today's plan was to go to Isla del Sol, "the birthplace of the Inca culture". It's not exactly it actually. The Incas came after the "Tiwanakus" -a pre-Inca culture- and the Isla del Sol is the capital of the Tiwanaku culture just like Cusco is to the Inca culture. 

At least that's what I understood. Ish.

The "Sun Island" is located on Lake Titicaca, about 2h by boat from Copacabana. We decided to be dropped on the north side of the island, get a guided tour of the ruins and walk 11km (7 miles) south where the boat would pick us up again.  Of all the people on our boat, we were the only people to walk! It was only a 3h walk at 4200m above see level. 

The island looks like Corsica, but not as nice. Of course :)

The weather was awesome and the mediterranean style landscape great. The highest point of the island is 4250m above sea level and you can feel it when you go uphill. It took our breath away to take the following picture!

 

The only "downside" of this stunning place is that we have to go through several "checkpoints" and pay an "entry fee". Each one of them (3) was 5 bolivianos (about 50p) so it's nothing much and by talking to the locals we understood this helps to pay for the kids' school and any needs they may have. We also learned that the locals' lifestyle has improved a lot since more tourists come to the island so we gladly pay for it. We had to convince some French and a German to pay the fee as they were trying to get away without paying. We try to stay away from these "tourists".

On the way we met Dan, Karen, Chris and Debbie from England. Chris and Debbie used to live about 3 minutes walk from our place in Clapham Junction and Debbie used to work with the person who helped us book our Round the World trip at Trailfinders! The world is such a small place.

We are now heading to Cusco...