At the copa.... Copacabana!

Deffinately an annoying song to have stuck in your head for three days of hiking, even if I was in Copacabana!

Arrived in Copa after an extremely picturesque minibus ride. Decided to splurge and pay 3 pounds to rent the entire minivan between 7 of us instead of fitting in 14 people! Also had to put the minivan on a boat and us on another boat for part of the ride!

Lovely little town situated on Lake Titicaca but full of hippies! Seriously, everywhere. One even decided to busc (sp?) inside the internet cafe! So wrong.

Me, Jarred and Kyle woke up early so we went to the catherdral to look around and watched the twice daily blessing of the automobiles! We arent quite sure why but decided it would be a really good idea to hire a swan peddle boat and bless it. I dressed as a nun, with my scarf, we shook some beer around, named it SS Pringle and sprinkled Pringles on it and generally got a bit excited while sitting in the middle of a lake on a peddleo!

The evening we decided to climb up to the top of the hill, following the trail of 14 crosses and a nicely marked path to watch sunset. Instead we started in the wrong place and essentially rock climbed our way to the top.... sunset was cloudy! Walked down the correct path on the way back though! Oops. Set the scene for the next days walk though.

There are two ways to get to Isla del Sol, the boat from Copacabana or walk to Yampupata (17km, according to the lonely planet) and then get a shorter boat ride to the Isle. Me and Jarred decided to walk and meet the others on the island at the end of the day for dinner and hostel. The beginning of the walk was lovely. Flat, every Bolivian said hello, lots of llamas deciding to follow us, etc. Then there was a little uphill bit which was still manageable. Reached what we thought was the Virgin in a cave very quickly and were feeling very good about the whole thing.

30 mins after that we actually found the virgin in a cave and then we got to the point where the lonely planet says a shortcut is possible. That short cut added 3 hours to the 4 hour walk. Oh yes.

We walked up a hill which I will forevermore refer to as the hill of DEATH. Jarred walks a little quicker and got alot ahead of me on the hill. And he was carrying all the food supplies... left over pizza and a snickers each. We lost each other at about 4000m above sea level. It starts to rain. There is thunder. I am cold! Oh my gosh not the best idea we had. I was calling for him, he was calling for me. Neither of us heard each other! Reuniting was maybe the best part of the walk!

We sat down and ate the left over pizza we ad on us and started walking again, downhill! Until we realised that we were about to tresspass on someones backgarden. The alarm system was very effective too: donkey went off, dogs came running and then the lady owner popped her head over. I had to try to explain to her that we were lost and how to get to where we wanted to go. She just kept replying with up, up! I did not want to climb back up the hill but I did. It was up hill for the next two hours!

Spoke to nice Bolivian people, kept being told at half hour intervals ´only another hour and a half´ and tried but failed to hitchhike up the hill until FINALLY making it to the boat bit. Sitting on a little motor boat for 20 minutes was bliss, until we made it to the south end of the Isle Del Sol and me the Inca Staircase. SO much uphill! Made it to the restaurant to meet the others and was so, so happy and exhausted!

The next day we walked from the south end of the island to the north to see the Inca ruins and the walk was a doddle! The scenery was beautiful and the beach we ended at was amazing. Had a relaxing few hours before getting the boat to the main land and the bus overnight to Cusco!