Saturday was another free day in Cusco, although I just had a lie in because of the night before. I had the option to visit various museums for free with my Cusco visitors pass but I instead ended up in the Irish bar for another full English. I ended up spending most of the afternoon in there watching the Leicester game, and then the Real Madrid game. After the pub I headed back to the hotel and relaxed, before going out for a Mr soup in the evening, and then bed.
Sunday was effectively a drive day, and with a 7am start we were braced for long day. Shortly after leaving Cusco we stopped at the ruins of Tipon to see a working inca irrigation system as well as more terraces. It was an interesting tour. We then continued south to Puno, stopping en route at Pucara for lunch. We also drove through the town of Juliaca which is probably the biggest shithole I have ever seen. Brick houses without roofs, with metal poles sticking out, no tarmac road, and stray dogs everywhere.
Puno is located on the shore of Lake Titicaca in the south eastern region of Peru. The town is a melting pot of Aymara and Quechuan Indian cultures and traditional Andean customs are still strongly represented here. Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world, and a mythical expanse of deep blue waters dotted with islands, some of which are still home to communities who have been living in the same way for hundreds of years. Puno was effectively a stopover but we arrived in good time for me to walk down to the lake, all be it in the rain. For dinner I went to a chicken restaurant, before doing a few pubs, finishing at a Peruvian locals pub where I challenged them to pool and actually won. It was a late night.
For some reason I felt horrendous on Monday morning, although I still got up and went to the local market for breakfast instead of the hotel breakfast as I was fed up with eggs. We had a relatively short drive day, with just a notoriously bad border crossing to negotiate. Unfortunately the truck broke down due to the cooling system breaking or something. I didn't really know what was going on but they had to detach the front section from the back and do stuff underneath and we were delayed by a good hour. We eventually left and arrived at the border by lunchtime.
Leaving Peru was pretty straightforward, getting stamped out with ease, although it wasn't so easy for the truck as the people who check vehicles were on lunch. We managed to walk across minus the truck and get stamped into Bolivia easily, although we needed Gus to give us a lift to our hotel in Copacabana as Amber was stranded in Peru. It was a pretty awful security system though as we were able to take whatever we wanted off Amber and take it straight into Bolivia before customs checked the truck.
Copacabana is a picturesque small town on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. At over 3800m above sea level, it felt more like a beach resort than a lakeside town with the a sandy beach and hot weather. After checking in I went out into the town with a couple of others where we had pizza at some restaurant owned by Americans. It was a really good pizza although there were telling us about the lack of running water due to the drought which had affected Bolivia massively.
After lunch we went to back to the hotel, before I left to go to this English bar to get good wifi as the wifi was awful at the hotel. The wifi was also awful at the bar. I then went up the hill to get a view of the town, heading back down after a short while to watch the sunset which was spectacular. For dinner we ate a local restaurant where I had the beef lasagne, followed by chocolate moose. I then had an early night after my antics with the locals in Puno.
Tuesday was a relative lie in, leaving at 9am for a boat transfer to Isla del Sol. Isla del Sol is a serene and peaceful island set in the glittering Lake Titicaca off the shore of the Bolivian village of Copacabana. The island was famous in Inca mythology as the supposed birthplace of the sun-god Inti - a legend that is still told by many of the modern-day Aymara and Quechua peoples of the area. There are small ancient ruins dotted on the island, as well as tiny traditional villages and beautiful walking routes.
After breakfast we took the boat across stopping en route at some ruins, before continuing onto the northern tip of the island to hike across the island. Shortly after getting off the boat we climbed a small hill to these ruins where we had lunch, although we were joined by these pigs which everyone kept feeding! After visiting the ruins we headed south following a well defined path which was very up and down. The views of the lake were amazing and the walk in all was about 9km so pretty moderate. The air felt a lot thinner than usual however.
When arriving at the southern part of the island we sat in a restaurant garden to relax as a member of our group is particularly slow compared to everyone else. When they arrived a couple of hours later we checked into the hotel and watched an amazing sunset a few hours later. For dinner we went to this restaurant where I had the trout which Titicaca is famous for. The service was really slow though. I then went to the hotel for an early night.
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