Isla del Sol

After the big hectic city of La Paz I needed some silence and nature.
So I made a 2-days trip to Isla del Sol located on Lake Titicaca, 1 hour by ferry from Copacabana.
The legend says that on this island the sun-god of the Incas (Inti) was born. So it is the birthplace of the big Inca-empire.

After arriving on the island you have to climb up a hill on the famous Inca-stairs. At an altitude of
almost 4000m and 300 stair steps up the hill it was not that easy. I had to stop 2 times to rest because my heart was bumping like crazy and I was breathing like an old steam-machine...

I continued hiking from the southern village (Yumani) to the northern village (Challapampa). There I stayed one night with the locals in a pretty cool small house with a nice view.
At night I watched the amazing stars on the night-sky until a thunderstorm came up on lake Titicaca.
The island is probably one of the best spots to watch the stars as there are almost no light-sources that influences your sight.

Early on the next morning I made my way to the sacred rock, where the sun-king should be born. Next to the rock is also a sacrifice-table and some ruins of an Inca-village.
After that I made my way back over several mountains to Yumani to catch my ferry back to Copacabana and La Paz.

During that hike I made five 4000-m (some even higher) mountains in about 3 hours. Not bad eh?
(To be honest, it is not difficult as lake Titicaca itself is at about 3800m... But still it sounds very good, eh?  :-)  )