Lake Titicaca - The Spring of Civilisation

Lake Titicaca is a place surrounded by myth and legend. The name means 'stone Puma' in Quechua, so called because it resembles a Puma's head, but also because the Puma is the sacred animal of the lands of the living, and the Quechua/Inca people believe they were born out of the lake. This myth may stem from the fact that the founder of the Incan Empire, Manco Capac, came from a collapsed civilisation called the Tiwanaku who lived by the lake. Either way, it is a place of deep significance in indigenous culture.

That's not the ocean

I arrived in the lakeside town of Copacabana with my buddy of the last few days, Barney (from Byron Bay Aus), and after a solid night's sleep to work off the last of our La Paz hangovers, we set off for Isla del Sol. The island is something I had heard much about from websites and other travellers because it has a wealth of heritage sites and indigenous culture. Unfortunately, when we got there we found that the north and south of the island were in a dispute and so we could only visit a small part of the southern end. This was a disappointment, which was only compounded when torrential rain swept in that night.

This is not to say it was all bad, far from it. As you land at the southern end, you are greeted with some appealing looking hostels and some beautiful but intimidating stairs. Having done our homework, we opted for the stairs, as the cheapest accommodation was at the top in the town of Yumani, perched 4,000m above sea level and 150m above the lake. 

After the gruelling climb with full packs (which even the locals struggled with) past endless sets of flowers and little waterfalls, we found a hostel with a spectacular balcony view for $6. We had an incredible view of the lake, which is so large it disappears over the horizon and you have to remind yourself constantly that you're not by the sea. Better views of the rest of the island were found on some structures on the highest peak on the island, around 4100m high. These odd, abandoned looking places looked like they might have been ambitious hotels or restaurants, but now were just photo platforms. The island itself is a rugged place, with the less steep hillsides turned into terraces for farming quinoa, beans and barley, and the rest of the land used for sheep, donkeys and llamas. 

Top entrance to Templo del Sol. Not whose face that is. The complex goes down a lot further.

In the morning, we managed to walk down to an ancient temple of the sun, a small building with lots of pathways that definitely felt very Indiana Jones. It started raining so hard that we had to take shelter inside the temple for a bit! Finally, we went back down the steps to the boat, reluctantly as we knew we had only barely glimpsed what the island had to show us. 

Back on the mainland, we decided to explore a bit more of Copacabana. The town is home to one of the most famous and important Catholic relics in South America, la Virgen de Copacabana. The Virgin is said to have appeared to some indigenous people in that exact place; nowadays it is a popular pilgrimage site in February and March. A statue of the Virgin is held inside an enormous Cupola complex which looks very Moorish in style with its white walls, arches and mosaics. Like most churches in Bolivia, the altars were covered in gold and silver, and the Virgin herself was covered with precious stones.

This place takes up two blocks!

After getting our fill of riches, we went down to the waterfront for some of the local delicacy, Trout. For $5, we both got absolutely stuffed full of delicious fish, while cute street dogs waited for any scraps to fall. Tough luck for them, we both cleaned the plates!

On my last day there, we decided to climb a hill. Not the hardest thing in the world...unless you're already 4000m above sea level. As we gasped and panted our way up a hill overlooking the town, we had a moment of deep sympathy for people that thought climbing Everest was a good idea as we had to take rest stops every 30 or so metres - and this was on a path! Making it to the top was sweet victory, and made better when we went down the other side to take a dip in the lake. We saw some jetties from the top of the hill, and when we got down there we were astonished to find several glass beaches made from the shards of smashed bottles. Beautiful as it was, it showed that what people were saying about Titicaca getting polluted was no exaggeration. We found a track that appeared to lead round to the town, but we found our way blocked by a military base of all things, so we had to slog all the way up and all the way back down again. 

Relaxing on the glass shards

Overall, Titicaca ended up being one of those many backpacker excursions where you make the best of a bad set of circumstances. I was very disappointed to miss most of Isla del Sol but there is plenty of fun things to do around the area if you

have a head for heights, and I definitely would have stayed longer if my visa wasn't running out. Next stop is Cusco, which I am very, very excited about as it is one of the main reasons I always wanted to come to South America. Hasta Pronto!