Isla Del Sol

Weather: Boiling painful heat whilst trekking.




Llama Count: One. (Whose owner was charging tourists five Bolivianos to take a picture of it... the grand price of 45p) I think this was extortionate, and thankfully am at end of Llama craze phase, and entering over Llamered phase.




This is about to become a recurrent theme, but the french and I missed the tourist boat to the Isla del Sol. Instead we had to charter a boat out to the island, for the extortionate price of nine pounds. (At some point I will stop searching for the pound sign on the south american keyboard.)




According to Wikipedia:

"The first Inca Manco Cápac is said to have emerged from a prominent crag in a large sandstone outcrop known as Titikala (the Sacred Rock). Manco Cápac is the son of Intithe Andean deity identified as the sun. In one version of the myth, the ancient people of the province were without light in the sky for many days and grew frightened of the darkness. Finally, the people saw the Sun emerge from the crag and believed it was the Sun's dwelling place. In another version related by Cobo, others believed the crag was dedicated to the Sun because it hid under the crag during a great Flood. Isla del Sol was the first land that appeared after the flood waters began to recede and the Sun emerged from Titikala to illuminate the sky once again. A temple was built at this rock and later expanded by the 10th Inca Tupac Inca Yupanqui. He built a convent for mamaconas (chosen women) and a tambo (inn) for visiting pilgrims."




There was certainly no lack of sun today. There was not a cloud in the sky, and it beat down during the four hour trek, which should have been easy but at high altitude it felt like I was a pensioner trying to climb up Everest. My camera (which was fixed by a lovely Korean man in Sucre) decided to break again. Well I thought it was broken for the day (it did eventually transpire that it had merely run out of battery.)




We returned at about four to Copacabana. The trip back (on the tourist boat this time) went past the main station of the Bolivian navy. The navy is an exceptionally sore point for many Bolivians, they were not always a landlocked country and lost their coastal department to Chile in the war of the Pacific in the nineteenth century. Today judging by the size of the naval base, it wouldnt surprise me if the ships were made up of the two hundred or so swan shaped pedalos which were moored a couple of hundred metres along the coast.



We returned in time for more trout and a Bolivian festival celebrating the birthday of St Francis. It was held in the main plaza, which was quite big, but the pyromaniac in charge was setting off rockets next to, and in to the lines of dancers.... I wonder if this is the real purpose of the ubiquitous bowler hat. Anyway at one point he disappeared for a few minutes only to return with a cardboard pig, which had a couple of roman candle fireworks attached to the front of its face like tusks, these acted as flame throwers with a range of almost eight meters  He then ran into the dancers and then the crowd, I escaped with singed jeans. All revelers were drinking a strange concoction that translated as tea with tea. This was deeply misleading, and failed to take account of the bottles labeled -portable alcohol 96%- which were being poured liberally into the mixture.

Tomorrow I say goodbye to the french, and head to Cusco in Peru for more fun Inca times.