Isle Del Sol

The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

- Christopher McCandless

Getting into Bolivia is perhaps the most frustrating objective in travel outside of getting into China.  Whereas the latter requires extraordinary patience over days and nights, the former requires only tremendous patience over one day and one night.  They both require money.  A lot of money.  The Chinese charged me $180.00 and the Bolivians charged me $160.00.  But the Chinese advertise this sum and made me well aware of it before I entered their country.  The same cannot be said about the Bolivians and their country.  Their whole system is muddled and haphazard.  They would have you unaware of the sum until right before the gates.  I know this because that’s the way they had me until right before the gates, with two steps left in Peru

I should say this before I continue: these holdups and astronomical visa fees pertain only to the American traveler, as the European traveler and the Oceanic traveler have the good fortune of living under less influential governments.  As a rule, the more influence you have, the more people you upset, apparently.  I don’t know why the American government and the Bolivian government are upset with each other, I don’t particularly care, but I do know that I had nothing to do with it, and that I am paying the price now.  Very well, it was my goal to get to Copacabana, Bolivia, and so I must bear the appropriate burdens.

I was about to enter the border checkpoint in front of the gates.  I had had concerns as to what this process would be like before.  Getting onto the bus that brought me to the present checkpoint, it had been made clear to me that there would be trouble along the way.  Standing in line to enter the bus in Puno I was stopped and asked what my nationality was.  I believe it was a combination of my size and my backwards hat that gave me away, but it could have been my passport too, I suppose.  Certainly the bus driver was upset with the discovery that I was American; he rolled his eyes and tilted his head to the side before straightening himself out and saying to me:

“Another American!?  Do you have your papers?”

“What papers?”

“Ughhhhhhhh!!!… The Papers!?”

“I have my passport right here”

“No passport… Papers!!!”

“I don’t know what papers you are talking about.”

“Ughhh… Romero, Ven Aqui!”

Romero came hustling over and had a brief discussion with the bus driver before turning to me.  Romero was much nicer than the bus driver… and spoke better English too:

“He says you need your papers, sir”

“I know, but what papers is he referring to?”

“He is referring to your yellow fever papers, sir, and your proof of lodging papers, sir, and your visa papers sir, and your…”

“Wait, but I didn’t need proof of lodging papers for Peru?  And what are all these other things?”

“Sir, these are all the papers Americans need to present to Bolivian border patrol.”

“Well I don’t have any of them.”

“Ok, Ok sir.  One moment.”

Romero called someone while walking away from me.  Meanwhile, travelers from all over the world walked passed me, flashed the bus driver their passports, and only their passports, and continued onto the bus.  If I were the type of person to get embarrassed I should have turned red.  Romero came back:

“Sir, this man will take you into Bolivia, no problem” and put his arm around a short Peruvian man in his early fifties.

Alright, I thought

“What about the papers?  What about all the documentation?”

“Don’t worry sir, this man will take care of it, just stay close to him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m sure.”

So, with that I followed this most recent stranger onto the bus and hoped for the best.  When in South America, I thought.  About an hour later we arrived at the border patrol, and this is when I found out about the ludicrous visa fee of $160.00.  I considered turning around and bidding Bolivia a forever farewell, but the border crossing was full of strangers who weren't showing much promise and I had no desire to wait with them for six hours until the next bus came, so I coughed up the money and continued through.  The man I had been told to stay close to was frantically darting back and forth between buildings doing whatever he must have done in order to get me into Bolivia, and before I knew it I was waived through to the other side.  In Bolivia at last!

The bus took us to Cobacabana; a colorful little town on the shores of Lake Titicaca, full of restaurants and coffee shops.  The markets stretched up and down nearly every side street, and dogs played carefree on the grass and in the streets.  There were parades almost daily, and the people were some of the friendliest I had met in South America.  I spent my first night in an overpriced hotel called Perla del Lago (Pearl of the Lake) and the rest of the week in a room more fit for a budget traveler that overlooked one of the street markets.  The Residencial Imperio it was called.

I signed up for a trip to Isle del Sol as soon as I was able to.  It was one of the main reasons I put up with the hassle of entering Bolivia in the first place.  Apparently, Isle del Sol (The Sun Island), which lies out in Lake Titicaca, is where the Inca people rose from the water to populate the world.  I had heard there were religious ruins and monuments and even sacrificial alters that dotted the island.   This was something I couldn’t miss.

I joined a tour and took a boat to the northern shore of the island.  This is where I met up with my tour guide.  He was drenched in sun and wore a leather cowboy hat.  He looked very old, but must have been younger than he looked.  He showed mostly gums when he smiled as he had lost most of his teeth through the years; still, he had more teeth in his head than English words in his vocabulary; so much for learning anything meaningful about the island I thought.  I followed the tour guide, and by consequence the tour group, up a series of terraces that lead through a series of villages.  At last we got to the top of the hill and I was able to see 360 degree views of the lake and the shores beyond.  It was at this time that I decided to break off and hike from the northern shore to the southern shore by myself.  Well, with three other people I had recently met actually; two Brazilians and a French lady.  We hiked two miles along the spine of the island, with the dark blue water of Lake Titicaca to the right and left, beyond which were the towering white peaks of the Andes always checking that we were ok, or perhaps stalking us for later.  Eventually we reached the village of Yumani and boarded a boat back to Copacabana.  Thus ended my tour.