After one more night in cold La Paz, we took a bus towards Copacabana. Not the famous beach in Brazil, but a small village on the coast of lake Titticaca. We where supposed to go directly to Puno, but a last chat with a local persuaded us to get off the bus and take a boat to Isla Del Sol.

Isla Del Sol is a sacred isle in Inca folklore, it gave birth to the sun and it is placed about two hours from shorein lake Titticaca. Everything you do, except maybe staring at a wall, in 4.000m altitude takes an effort, and wisely we left our main baggage behind at a hostel and only brought the most neccesary items like laptop, toiletpaper and lollypops.

There are no cars on the island, but there are trails that wind up and down the mountainsides. We followed one of these trails, and after meeting only pigs, donkeys, llamas and the occational farmer, we ran into Ruud. A Dutch traveller who was also out exploring the island. We joined up and tried to navigate with our maps; none of them correct.

After 2,5 hours of walk with breath taking(literally) views,we came to a little beach. On the hillside overlooking the water, there was a hotel, that was not described in Lonely Planet, so our curiosity got the better of us and we climbed the rough steps cut out in stone of the mountain to get there.

There was no one around, and strangely the keys to all the rooms where sitting in the locks...a ghost hotel?

A local woman from a nearby house saw us, and after ushering her pigs out of her house, she went and found the woman who was the care taker. We could indeed stay there if we where willing to pay the outrageous price of 25 bolivianos per person (2,5 euro), we said thank you and went to the local party. This was our cheapest hotel stay on the trip, for Ruud it was the most expensive, we are fake backpackers after all :-)

They only have two party days a year, and we hit one of them. Parties seem to be a little different on an island in lake Titticaca. Two lines of people dance with each other, minimum 2 meters apart and the men mostly sit and drink beer and chew coca leaves. They would applaud when someone brought more beer or made a fool out of himself. We sneaked in, found a corner and joined the 'fun'.

After dark it gets really cold, and we went back to the hotel where the lady had cooked local fish and soup for dinner.

After a cold cold night we got up enjoyed the fantastic view in the morning, walked back to the boat and went to Puno, where we will explore some more.