We were up early on the Sunday morning to get the 8.30am ferry to the Isla del Sol, where the Incas believe the sun was created. We landed on the north of the island where there are some interesting Inca ruins (and what's believed to have been a table for sacrifices).
The Isla del Sol is also home to the Titi Khar'ka rock from which the lake gets its name. The rock is meant to be shaped like a puma (Titi Khar'ka means Rock of the Puma) but we couldn't figure out which rock it was exactly. I think it's somewhere in this picture.
We then ended up hiking 3 hours across the island to the south, where most of the restaurants and hostels are. Why we decided to walk so long when we are not big fans of walking I don't know. Navigational issues also meant we couldn't have lunch until the end of the trek, which led to hungry Christine and therefore grumpy Christine. A £3 Snickers from a shop along the way helped get us there, but also meant we only had 200Bs or £20 to cover dinner, accommodation and breakfast for both of us.
There are no ATMs on the island so I thought we were going to have to miss either dinner or breakfast, but after tapping away on her calculator, the owner of the first hostel we went in to said we could have an en suite double room including dinner AND breakfast for 200Bs. And when Paul found 20 Peruvian Soles (£4.50) in his wallet, we even got two big bottles of beer! We were pretty satisfied with that deal, especially given the view we had from our balcony.
The next day, we walked down to some ruins on the south of the island.
And then the route to the ferry port took us down an Inca staircase.
And then the route to the ferry port took us down an Inca staircase.
And to think, if the Peruvian customs dude hadn't been such a twat we would never have visited the island.
