After two weeks traveling in South America, I never thought I would get somewhere that would remind me of the Mediterranean. I did when I arrived in Copacabana (Bolivia) on Lake Titicaca. Of course it was still a lot poorer than anything on the Mediterranean, except maybe Albania. However, it still had the same small town built on the side of a hill, above crystal clear water, laid back atmosphere that you get in the best places on the Mediterranean. It was also nice after all of the dry and dirty landscapes I had been so far, to be somewhere with at least a little more green.

The town of Copacabana is quite small, but it has a lot of backpackers going through, so it also has lots of cool restaurants, cafes, etc. The first thing I did was climb up one of the two hills that the town is built on and around in order to get a great view and some photos. After only a supposed half hour hike, maybe taking a little longer as the altitude kept stopping me at points, I got a view of the entire town. I could also see all the way to Isla del Sol, which was the next days destination.

Isla del Sol (or the Island of the Sun) is the "birthplace" of the Inca religion. There are ruins in the north of the island, including the sacred rock where the Inca creation legends begin, birthplace of the sun. I caught the boat at 8:30, and even though the island is not very far, it took two hours to get to the North end of the island. I think there is probably a speed restriction on Lake Titicaca, as it was a fast catamaran, but only did maybe 20 km/hr the whole way. There was three boats that arrived at the same time, so probably almost 100 tourists were all dropped together. After about a half an hour of all the tourist kind of wandering about and looking for the trail head, some must have found it, and all the tourists started in the direction of the Inca ruins. I followed along. The trail up to the ruins was quite nice, passing little houses and farms, and again giving great views of the crystal clear lake below. Again I was reminded very much of similar vistas I have seen in the Mediterranean. The hike was only spoiled by the masses of tourists both ahead and behind me.

Luckily it was not a long hike, only about 45 minutes uphill to the ruins. The sacred rock I mentioned was just that, a big rock, nothing too exciting. The ruins were pretty cool though. Most of the walls were intact, being anywhere from knee height, all the way to having roofs. You were able to walk all through them too, which was really cool. I wandered through various winding rooms, halls, and open air spaces until I stumbled on a kind of hidden terrace that you could only get to by ducking through a few tight rooms. People must have been very short there 1000 years ago. The ceiling height was about 5' 10". The little area I found overlooked the ruins and lake, and was the perfect spot to sit for a while. So, I sat in the shade of the Inca wall and did one of my half hour Spanish lessons on my iPod. Only two groups of people "found" my spot while I was there, and one had a local guide that was showing them the ruins.

The only excitement was the llama in the little area beside mine. His walls were not as high as mine, and therefore people were spotting him all the time and going over to take pictures. He also blocked one of the entrances to my little area, so I was happy he was there. After that the hike was even better as most people had left the ruins long before I did. It really only took about 10-15 minutes to explore the entire ruins, as they were not very big. After that, it was then about a 3.5 hour hike from the north of the island to the south of the island, hiking along a long ridge or spine on the island. It was an absolutely beautiful hike. It was a lot more up and down than I expected, and the altitude definitely made me slower that usual, but the views were worth it. The lake was visible almost always on one side or another, or both, and I hiked above a bunch of little villages, all perched on the hillsides just above the lake.

At the end of the hike was the biggest village on the island, Yumani, which is also very backpacker friendly. It was extremely picturesque. There were dozens of little hostels / restaurants / cafes perched on the top of hills overlooking the lake below. It would have been the perfect place to stop, take a rest, and have a nice cold beer. But alas, since I had taken a half hour break for my Spanish lessons in the Inca ruins, and probably slowed down by another half hour for the altitude, I needed to hurry to catch my 3:30 boat back to Copacabana. If I had a few more days in my itinerary, a day or two in Yumani would have been very nice. Instead, I just grabbed a water to go, and hiked the 20 minutes straight downhill, pretty much all steps, to arrive with 10 minutes to spare before the boat left, perfect! This was now my second favorite day of my trip so far, only after the death road.

So the next day I caught an early bus and travelled from Bolivia to Peru, to stay one night in Puno, the city on the Peru side of Lake Titicaca. I had heard it was not that nice a city, so I only planned one night. And it was not all that nice, especially comparing it to Copacabana. It's hard to believe its the same lake when the water was so polluted in Puno, yet crystal clear on the Bolivia side. But the one thing to do there was to see the floating islands of the indigenous Uros people. So I caught a 3 hour boat tour for 10 soles, or about $4.00. It was actually quite interesting, or at least learning about how the islands are built, and how they can move then around into different formations. The islands are continually being replaced or built by placing reeds from lake on top of the old reeds. They last for months, and eventually work there way to the bottom where they disintegrate into the lake. The tour ended on an island with a restaurant, and lots of trout dishes, the local specialty from the lake. So, needless to say, I skipped the trout and just had a beer and enjoyed the view. Later that night I had the guinea pig instead, which also seemed to be a local specialty dish in all the restaurants. It was terrible. It was pretty much all skin and bones, and hardly any meat on it. At least my stomach seemed to like the guinea pig, and there was not a repeat of the llama stew in Argentina, which my stomach violently rejected!