copacabana & isla del sol, bolivia

Getting away from Cusco was harder than it should`ve been. Apparently we were to late for the direct bus, so the guy from the tour agency tried to organize an alternative, since Jakob and I didn`t want to stay in Cusco for another night.

After discussing for a while, he found a bus - cheaper but we also had more stops.

And it turned out to be the worst bus ride I`ve had until now. We were by far the only gringos on the bus and it did exactly what should be avoided on night buses - it stopped at any random place to let people get on or off the bus. All the time I had nightmares of arriving and all my stuff being gone.

But we were lucky and arrived in Juliaca early in the morning with our backpacks still on the bus.
From there we had to take a colectivo to Puno and then another bus which would take us across the Bolivian border to Copacabana.

We didn`t have to wait long and also the border crossing went by without problems. And soon we got to the nice little town of Copacabana, which lies right at the shore of the beautiful Lago Titicaca. It`s a very touristic town, but it has lots of nice restaurants and for me being close to water is always great.

We stayed in Copa for one night, before leaving to the Isla del Sol early next morning.

There we decided to be crazy people, and walked with our backpacks all the way from the southern part of the island to the northern - right through the mountains, tipping altitudes of 4100 msnm. That was exhausting, but the trail was just amazing and it felt really good having achieved something like that.

But we decided not to camp, and luckily we found a refugio, that was just paradise for me. On an island, with a great view, supe rnice owners and a fireplace kitchen with a bunch of cuys behind it - that`s also why I decided to stay there for a couple of days. Jakob left the next day, so after that I also got my own room and just enjoyed some quiet days in nature.
I went for walks, had time to read my book, and also drank some wine with a bunch of Argentinian guys. I also met some nice Brazilians and all in all I had a great time at the island (it was also awesome that there was no internet connection ;))

Only one day wasn`t that good, because I got pretty sick. So I had to stay in bed all day, in a feverish state of half sleeping, and was really glad when the grandma from the refugio helped me out a little and gave me some tea, a massage and some herbs for my head. She didn`t really speak Spanish and knew a lot about the herbs growing around - she reminded me a little of a witch, and the herbs she gave me really hepled :)

I left the beautiful island after a couple of days, after I felt that there was nothing to do for me there anymore.