Isla del Sol: Two days in sunny, sacred paradise

I gave into compulsion, pulling my camera off my shoulder although I'd told myself a dozen photos earlier that I had to stop. Only three weeks into my six-week trip, space on my memory card was precious. I climbed on a pile of rocks and looked through the viewfinder into the limitless horizon, breathing heavy in the thin air and rolling my shoulders in an effort to relieve the pangs from my heavy backpack. I snapped yet another picture.

Silky cerulean waters all around. Majestic snowcapped mountains distant on the horizon. Sheep grazing from golden pastures. Undulating hills of rocky green and beige spiraled with ancient Inca terraces. Ruined temples, sacrificial rocks and mythical fountains. Women with weathered faces chatting in the pre-Inca Aymari tongue and leading loaded mules up winding trails. Their husbands tilling earth and holding radios to their ears. Surrounded by glorious sunshine and silence. 

Isla del Sol, this place was mystical beauty, no less than the setting for the creation myth of the Inca Empire. The birthplace of the sun god and home to a legendary city, now lost underwater.

The Bolivian island is the largest of 41 islands on Lago Titicaca, the world's highest navigated lake at 12,500 feet-high. It's a fertile refuge at the crossroads of the imposing Andes and the hostile altiplano. Fed by rainfall and glacial meltwater from the Sierras, at some places the lake's depths reach 1,000 feet. This body of water is so massive that it takes a week to cross by boat. Inhabitated three-thousand years before Christ, today the island has no roads or vehicles, only laberynth ruins of Incan nunneries and subsistence farmers and fisherman.

The day before we'd flown from the jungle over the mind-blowing Cordillera to Bolivia's capital La Paz and then taxied straight to the bus stop for the 3.5-hour trip to Copacabana, a sleepy little town near the Peruvian border on Lago Titicaca.

As the home of the cult of the Virgin Morena, hundreds of pilgrims come the the giant Moorish white-washed cathedral the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Copacabana in the town center on the weekends for the ritual blessing of miniature objects (toy-like cars and houses or even tiny wads of euros) by Catholic priests in Latin or by shamanes in Aymari. 

In the tranquilo European backpackers mecca my Finnish friend and I met a 20-year-old, charismatic German who'd just finished a year teaching in Ecuador. We found a hostel together for the night and hopped on a boat for the two-hour trip to the Isla del Sol the next morning.

Upon disembarking at the little village of Cha'allapampa on the northern shore, we let the tour groups proceed and instead paused on the beach for the Bolivian version of the American breakfast: one egg, bread with margarine and jelly, a small glass of orange juice and a mug of instant coffee or coca mate.

Then we followed wandering sheep and families of pigs into the windswept hills and fields, gawking at the vistas of the sea of cobalt water and the white Cordillera in the distance. We collectively sighed in the serenity of it all.

The island and the lake are right on Peru's notorious Gringo Trail, but we discovered a paradise of hushed solitide. At midday when the sun shone high overhead we stopped hiking for a picnic on a hilltop of 4,000 meters, tired but happy.

After walking all day we came to a hostel with a gorgeous lake front view, high above our $2-3 price range. But after five minutes of bargaining we took off our dusty boots in a luxe (by Bolivian standards) room with down comforters, heat and a private shower. That night an eerily beautiful full moon rose overhead as we ate our modest trout dinners.

In the morning we had to ask the owner to turn on the hot water for our previously agreed upon three-minute allottments. I made my way from the reception to our bathroom in an Olympic sprint. My roommates couldn't stop laughing. My hair has grown long in the past six months, and every drop of water counts.

The next morning we hiked to the south end of the island to the village of Yumani, greeting the more resilient than weary looking locals trudging up the hills and washing laundry on the beach while their children played tag. Before catching a return boat we walked up hundreds of stone stairs to sip from the Fuente del Inca, springs promising aid in love and health.


Just two days on the typical tourist itinerary, but for us it was two days of mystical, unexpected bliss.

Tales of an accidental backpacker

I´ve been wearing the same shoes every day for nearly six weeks. A pair of hiking boots. When I tie the laces a puff of dust releases into the air. These boots have crossed the world´s driest desert, squashed through muddy jungle, sunk into pampa swamps, braved the frenetic streets of South American metropolises and trekked around some of the world´s highest mountains.

In the past 40 days I´ve learned that it´s possible to live with only two pairs of jeans and two T-shirts. I´ve gotten used to the way my face looks without make-up. My daily routine no longer includes body lotion and perfume. I´ve forgotten how my hair feels when blown out long and smooth with a hair dryer. I´ve gone days without encountering a mirror. Or checking my e-mail or logging on Facebook.

My eyebrows need tweezed, my hair is desperate for a conditioning and my cuticles are a disaster. My back aches from lugging around my heavy backpack, which contains my current livelihood and I therefore protect at all costs. After weeks of traveling between 2,500 and 5,000 meters above sea level, I´m used to gasping for breath. My once oily skin is dry, and my once voluminous hair is almost flat in the thin, dusty air.

Yet through all of this I´ve never gone to bed without washing my face, brushing my teeth, and God bless my orthodontist, putting in my retainers. Sometimes that meant splashing river water on my face, getting out my toothbrush in bus station bathrooms splattered with vomit and diarrhea or scrubbing my retainers in a possibly snake-infested jungle fountain. And, may my dermatologist read this, I never stepped out into the oppressive mountain sun without lathering myself in sunblock and even donning an embarrassing safari hat I bought in the black market on the streets of La Paz before a spontaneous jungle expedition.

I can´t remember bathrooms with toilet paper and soap or with doors that even shut, besides lock. I sigh with relief if water actually flows from the faucet, always cold. I´ve accepted that sometimes baño means a hole in the ground with two footprints in front. I automatically hold my breath when I enter a bathroom and come out breathless like I´ve just finished a sprint. I´ll have to train myself to flush toilet paper again instead of tossing it in an overflowing basket.

Hot showers are a luxurious surprise. A hot shower with good pressure is an extravagance that I´ve encountered only once on this journey. I try to recall what it was like to drink water safe from the tap or buy produce from the market without fearing for my health. Or to accept change without worrying that it´s counterfeit.

I´ve learned to wash my socks and underwear in hostel sinks. I´ve discovered that almost no price is ever fixed, whether it´s a hostel, tour or earrings. I´m now wise enough to request a seat toward the front of the bus after suffering nights bouncing over the wheel on unpaved roads with cold air and exhaust fumes blowing in from the iced-over window that wouldn´t close. And I´ve found out that even if I have my bus ticket, I won´t be allowed to board unless I´ve paid for the right to access the terminal.

I wake up between 6 and 7:30 a.m., sometimes as early as 3 a.m. if an excursion requires it. I go to bed between 9 and 10 p.m., sometimes as early as 7:30 p.m. if I´m exhausted and there´s no electricity. My typical breakfast is bread and jam. My budged lunch and dinner usually consist of soup followed by rice, potatoes and chicken. (However, I tried llama in San Pedro de Atacama and ate lots of fried bananas in Bolivia.)

Every meal is served with coca tea, made from the same leaves as cocaine but sharing none of the illicit drug´s affects. (The people in this part of the world have been planting, chewing and drinking the plant for thousands of years, believing it to possess dozens of medicinal benefits essential for the hostile, high altitude conditions.)

I shake my head at the realization that I´ve been traveling through South America with a backpack for more than a month. It will be 42 days when I fly back to Santiago. Eighteen of them alone. I´ve been in three countries, 12 cities, 14 beds and one tent. I´ve suffered bone-chilling zero-degree temperatures with blustering winds on desert nights and steamy, 90-degree jungle days. I´m 1,667 miles from my home in Valparaíso, Chile with more than 900 photos on my camera´s memory card. I´ve had conversations with people from Sweden, Bolivia, Austrailia, Peru, New Zealand, Chile, Austria, Canada, Germany, England, Poland, France, Scotland, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland, Japan, Belgium, Argentina, Columbia, Mexico, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Israel, the Czech Republic and Brazil.

I crossed the world´s driest desert in a jeep. I went into the jungle. I traveled down the world´s most dangerous road. I´ve seen geysers, volcanoes, lakes of every color, deadly mines, ancient ruins, pampas, some of the world´s highest mountains and deepest canyons and the world´s largest salt flat. I´ve rafted on canyon rivers, trekked in the Cordillera Blanca, canoed on tropical lakes and mountain biked in the Andes.

I visited villages where electricity and running water have yet to arrive, where mules are used for transport and radios for communication. Communities where Spanish is a second language, if spoken at all, and Aymara and Quechua peoples still hold true to their pre-Inca and Inca dress, food and faith.

In six weeks I´ve had no less than five adventures of a lifetime. Please don´t think I´m bragging. I´m just in awe of my blessings. I´m fully aware that I´m utterly unworthy of any of this -- I´m not especially daring or outgoing. I wear makeup and love shopping and read fashion magazines. I don´t know East from West and bought my first big backpack on the street in Chile two days before I left.

Nothing was planned. This has been an unanticipated, undreamed of gift, the most spectacular trip I´ve experienced thus far, just in time for my quarter-of-a-century birthday.

And now I´m left the unrelenting urge to tell you all about it.