Meat, Malbec, and Mountains: 7-Apr Isla de Sol

Today I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Actually, I had angst filled dreams and barely slept. I dragged myself out of bed with the promise of a hot shower, but there was no hot water. I readied my backpack and headed down for breakfast exchanging a few angry words with the hotel manager. The brochure said hot water 24/7 and cable TV. I had neither.

A nice german gentleman overhearing my angry conversation did his best to calm me down over breakfast. Turns out we were both heading the same way- taking the ferry to Isla del Sol for the day.

The ferry was insanely slow and packed with gringos mainly from Europe. After 2 hours on Lake Titicaca, we reached the northern part of the island. I had planned on checking out the archaelogolical sites than hiking to the south end of the island to catch the afternoon ferry back. What I hadn´t planned on was being greeted by a guide at the dock. He herded all the people. We had to pay 10Bs for our ticket to the sacred sites. He herded us up the trail with a resounding VAMOS! All 100 people were following like sheep. ¡Vamos! AFter the arch sites we were turned loose to walk back on our own, but of course, we were asked not-so-subtly to provide a tip first. On the walk back there were 3 road blocks where there were Aymara men stationed telling us we needed to buy tickets for the next section of trail. It was annoying and put a slight damper on an otherwise nice day with good views. In total, it cost about $8 USD, but it was the principle behind being charged for no reason that was irritating.

We sauntered up the path taking lots of pics and almost missed the ferrry home. Lucky for me, there were lots of people on the ferry who came from La Paz and had some good hostel recommendations.