IV. SA Bolivia/W2: Copacabana & Isla EN

Sa, 18.03. Copacabana/Lake Titicaca
Around 9am that day we left the chaotic big city La Paz and took a 4h bus to the small tranquil, though a bit touristy town Copacabana - we are not talking about Rio and Brasil here but about a roughly 6,000 habitants town directly located at Lake Titicaca at an altitude of 3.810m.
The drive alone was already really scenic with nice pan flute music and we also had a cool ferry ride across the lake. Lake Titicaca is the largest and deepest lake in South America and the highest navigable lake on the world, bordering both Bolivia and Peru.
Best thing here: based on travelling with Felix and the low season we could spoil ourselves with a hotel room (!!! Oh yes, a real hotel room, probably only the 2nd one I have ever been to in my life^^) including own bathroom, lake view and directly located on the beach plus a yummy breakfast with fresh fruits such as water lemon, banana and papaya (the two latter are btw the best tip against stomach issues and diarrea) - for my budget backpacker life pure luxury and all that for just 60B/8€ :)))
To treat ourselves even more and as we are directly on a lake we had an awesome almuerzo with troit and lemon for lunch - only the beginning of 3 days full of different fish dishes; yummy ;)
After that and a bit of organisation we visited the church and Central Place which have a nice architecture. We then chilled a bit at the beach with a lot of new friends/dogs such as Copo trying to follow us everywhere.
With a good yummy piece of keke we then hiked up Cerro Calvario; the hike was a bit steep at the beginning and especially with this altitude but the views of Copacabana and its beach/harbour as well as the lake were amazing ;) Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy so there was no real sunset but we had a nice way back over some kind of calvary and saw a lot of local people and families.

Su, 19.03. Isla del Sol on Titicaca Lake
Oh yes, we are so spoilt and life is awesome - waking up with lake view, the famous Copacabana Song, awesome shower and nice breakfast; nothing more I can ask for :)
Being so spoilt we went to the harbour to set over to 'Isla del Sol' (Sun Island), the most famous island on the lake with the 3 communities Challapampa in the north, Challa in the centre and Yumani in the south, 2,000 habitants in total - no cars allowed, hardly any electricity, no WiFi; thus perfect conditions to relax and recharge our batteries after the buzzling city life. Having talked to a local we decided to take the 2,5h ferry (oh yes, the boats are pretty slow) to the north as it was supposed to be less touristy there. It was indeed really calm, we quickly found a decent hostel and started another cool hike.
This hike was to Cerro Tikani and it was just amazing. Awesome landscapes with mountains and lake views, quinoa and choclo terraces, pigs on the beach, lamas etc. We visited the Chincana Ruins, saw some other Inka temples and stones, enjoyed the scenery and then spoilt ourselves with a nice late almuerzo including quinoa soup and troit - but unfortunately at a higher price, island life is always more expensive as everything needs to be brought in.
We then chilled the afternoon at the beach and pretty soon after sunset it was sooo cold that we went back to the hostel, having an early night with some pretty strange donkey sounds ;)

Mo, 20.03. Isla del Sol
That day we got ready for our 7km hike from the north to the south - the whole island is only about 9km long and apart from a steep hike to reach the official path it was a pretty flat and easy hike of just 3-4h, even including 2x30min breaks to enjoy this incredible scenery and its Inka Ruins and Steps. There was one viewpoint where the left part reminded me a lot of rice terraces in Vietnam or South-East Asia and the right part both of us of New Zealand. We were also almost alone, another advantage of the low season.
During our hike we passed the other two communities Challa and Yumani with its Cerro Khea Kollu/Palla khasa and Cerro Chequesani with always incredible views. Apart from having to pay a relatively high tourist fee of 15B/2€ at each community, our plan of another fish lunch was crashed by reaching the pretty touristy and dear South Part. Well, we then decided to just wait for the ferry and had our fish back in Copacabana for dinner ;)
We then hopped on a 3-4h bus to Puno, Peru including a pretty slow and complicated border crossing arriving in Puno and my already 55th country in the late evening.Read more