Islas del Sol and la Luna
Copacabana, Bolivia - Day 11
Looking for a bit of adventure, Katie and I hopped on the slowest boat known to man and visited Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) and Isla de la Luna (Island of the Moon). These are two Bolivian islands of lake Titicaca. One Inca origin story states that Viracocha (a pre-Inca deity) created the sun on Isla del Sol and then the moon on Isla de la Luna. Father Sun and mother Moon then had a child who became the first Inca. We first went to Isla de la Luna and were able to walk around Iñaq Uyu, a burial site for noble Incan women. Isla del la Luna is a rocky, hilly little island. On Isla del Sol we explored Templo del Sol (Temple of the Sun) before trekking to the village of Yumani. Isla del Sol is much bigger and has over 80 ruins on the island, but unfortunately you can't see or visit anything on the north part of the island because of a 'disagreement' of sorts between the people of the north and south. The north was enjoying more tourist dollars because of its important ruins and the south demanded they send people down to visit their part of the island so that they could enjoy some of money coming in from tourism as well. When the north did not comply, people in the south blew up a new construction that was to be a resort and then created a blockade so that tourists could no longer visit the north part of the island. I am told this is 'very Bolivian'.
Unrelated to the islands, today also marked the day we definitely decided we were not going back to La Paz (other than to get to the airport when we leave Bolivia...). Wendy graciously allowed us to add two nights and our AirBnB host in La Paz very kindly allowed us to cancel. This cheered us up a bit, even though it meant we would have to drive three hours to La Paz airport on our last day...and take the barge....before sunrise...in the dark...but that is a story for another day!
