Lake Titcaca, and the trucha is tasty!

Leaving Ryan and Alder's beyootiful pad

After a long week battling giardia while taking advantage of the kind hospitality of our friends Ryan and Alder in La Paz (there was a flushing toilet, clean water, and an unbelievably cute baby! Not to mention a lot of good conversation about the Peace Corps/USAID life, and wildly tasty chow (not that I actually tasted it. Toast was more my scene...) courtesy of Betty, housekeeper turned master chef.), we got back at the traveling scene with an EPIC trip to Lake TITICACA – the largest high altitude lake in the world! (That’s a not a real title... but it is big. And HIGH – 3,808 meters!)

Our day 1 in Copacabana (the low-key lakeside beach town full of relaxed hippies and prosperous fisherman!) was a marathon of hammocks, an abundance of freshwater trucha criolla (the local specialty and Jihelah’s “favey faaaave!”), and napping. Our kind of marathon.

Hillside views of Copa

On day 2 we embarked on a sweet hike along the coast of the Titty, accompanied by several of the town’s most “malo” stray dogs. Many passerby informed us of our dogs’ bad reputations... Evidently they were notorious chicken-eaters. Uh-oh. 18 kilometers later we arrived at a beachy port where we hopped on a boat for the island Isla del Sol, the legendary Inca birthplace of the sun. Our favorite dog (who we christened Cacacara. Rough translation: poop face.... He ate a diaper) even followed us on this leg of our journey. He was a bold one.

The Inca trail 

Cacacara himself. Looking innocent on our boat to the island.

After a night of even MORE trucha eating, we hiked accross the island (still accompanied by our loyal Cacacara) to explore the ancient Inca ruins and La Tabla del Sol, which is supposedly where the sun was birthed and where Inca creation legend began. A late evening boat brought us back to Copacabana, where we dined on... wait for it... trucha, and then spent the next couple days exploring the surrounding area on foot and gazing in wonder at the grand Titty.

Isla del Sol

Tabla del Sol, and the man casually selling his artisan crafts on top of it!

Mid-hike photo shoot.

The Inca ruins of Isla del Sol

    

Mid-hike photo shoot round 2!

Our original plans involved ending our trip at Macchu Pichu, where we would be astounded by the major Inca action before spending an entire three days busing back to Santiago (where our return flights are leaving from..), but after carefully examining a calendar and being shocked by our dwindling number of days in Sur America, we decided to nix this phase of our travels in favor of extended time in Bolivia (including a wild adventure in the AMAZON...)

So this is a basket of llama fetuses that we found at a market in La Paz... I just thought someone should see it