Isla del Sol & Isla de la Luna

Lake Titicaca was one of this places you hear about but before I came to Peru I actually didn't really know anything about it. I wasn't aware that it's a massive lake on an altitude of 3,800m and that part of it actually lies in Bolivia. Most people even recommended the Bolivian side and I also heard a few times that I shouldn't stay in Copacabana as it is a tourist trap but make my way to Isla del Sol and find a hostel there. I had checked for hostels online but the only thing I could find was around $20,-. I was a little worried first but a girl I met in my hostel told me to just get there and walk around. I could easily find places around 20,-/30,- Bolivianos which is around $4,-!
When I got to Copacabana I saw what everybody had meant and was happy to jump on the boat to Isla del Sol. On the boat I met 2 girls from Belgium, Alicia and Heleen, and a guy from Poland. The guy from Poland had a reservation for a room for $25,-. When I told him about my plan to get a room for around $4,- he was pretty upset. But so far I was only relying on what I had heard.
Once the boat stopped at the island people came offering accommodation. The 2 Belgium girls and me had decided to find something together and one of the guys offered as a room for 3 for 30,- Bolivianos each. We said we wanted to look at it first. To get from the little harbor to the hostels you had to climb up a steep hill on irregular stone steps (or Inka steps). We started climbing with our big backpacks following that guy. After a few steps the guy turned around, looked at me and offered to carry my backpack. I didn't know why he asked me and not one of the others (maybe I looked the most exhausted?) but I did know it would be hard to not take his hostel after he carried my bag up. But the offer was still to tempting to turn it down. So I gave him my big backpack which made walking up the steps a lot easier. The hostel he showed us was one of the first up the hill. It had a nice terrace with a view over the lake for sunrise, big comfy beds with 3 blankets against the cold, hot showers, electricity, WIFI and breakfast for 10,- Bs in the morning! That was a lot more than I expected for 30,- Bs.
After we got settled we ventured out to explore the island. We first went towards some ruins but as they didn't really look to interesting we decided to skip them and kept walking. We climbed up to the top of the hill from where we could see to both sides of the lake. The Bolivian and the Peruvian shore.
We kept walking towards the little town Yumani. All this was in the south part of the island. Usually you can walk or take a boat towards the northern part of the island but due to a conflict that part is cut of the tourism at the moment.
We bought us beers and snacks in Yumani and went up another hill to watch the sunset. Here we met the guy from Poland again. He told us that he went to his $25,- hotel but when he saw it wasn't any better than what we got he decided to just ditch his reservation and found another place. We met some more people up here and went for dinner afterwards all together.
After dinner we realized that we didn't really know the way from town to our hostel as we had come up another way. But as we were in a group it was quite fun to walk in the dark with our flashlights trying to find the way. And in the end we did with only a few detours.
The next morning we had breakfast on the terrace and met some more people from our hostel. One couple from Holland, Lisette and Gijs, told us that they were musicians and after we asked to hear their music they actually got out an ukulele and started singing. The music was really nice and even though I didn't understand their dutch songs I could guess they were singing about emotional stuff. It was just one of this amazing moments: sitting in the sun, watching over Lake Titicaca while people you just met play nice music.
Most people were leaving after breakfast to get back to Copacabana. But my plan was to make a trip to Isla de la Luna and then stay another night at Isla del Sol. We went down to the harbor together and I got on a boat coming from Copacabana continuing to Isla de la Luna. The atmosphere on the boat was completely different than the day before. We had all been talking to each other but this boat was full of people traveling in groups just talking to each other. Even when I overheard a group talking about what to do later on Isla del Sol and I offered advice we didn't really get into a conversation. So I explored Isla de la Luna by myself. The ruins here were a little bigger than on the other Island but other than that it was basically just a smaller version of Isla del Sol.
Back on the main island I chilled for a while on the terrace writing on my blogg. For sunset I climbed to another lookout point which turned out to be even nicer than the one the day before.
Lisette and Gijs were also still on the island and we went to dinner together. We met a guy from Croatia and a girl from Turkey and it was again quite interesting to meet people who are not from the "typical" traveling countries.
The next morning I got up early to watch the sunset from our terrace. The breakfast afterwards was a lot different than the day before. Instead of everybody sitting together around a big table everybody was lined up facing the view of the lake just talking in small groups. Funny how different it sometimes is depending on the people. I sat with Lisette and Gijs before heading down to the harbor to catch the boat back to Copacabana.Read more