Covering an area of over 3,200 square miles and stretching into both Bolivia and Peru, Lake Titicaca is the South America's largest lake and also the world's highest major lake at an altitude of 3,812m, thus making it a rather picturesque and pleasant border crossing. In order to get a varied view of this amazing lake I decided to visit some of the islands from both countries.

As I had been 'stuck' in La Paz for such a long time, I needed to make sure that I actually left, therefore I had booked my ticket to the town of Copacabana the previous day to my intended travel. Cleverly I decided to go on one last night out to say goodbye to everyone I had met in La Paz, returning one and a half hours before the bus left... enough time for a power hour surely, as my bags were all packed and ready to go. I set my alarm and was feeling confident that I would have no trouble making the bus as two other girls in my room were also taking the same one. I must have been in a pretty deep sleep as not only did I not hear my alarm, I also did not hear the other girls packing up and leaving; nor did they make any attempts to wake me up! The bus was due to pick me up from my hostel between 0745 and 0815, so when I woke up at 0810 I had a mile panic, got dressed and ran downstairs with my bags. The bus had been and gone without checking for me, but the nice reception lady gave them a call to find out where they were as well as an earful for not asking after me. She had located them and asked them to wait, so I quickly checked out and ran through the streets of La Paz with my backpack / no easy task at an altitude of over 3,500m! I found the one spare seat on the bus and collapsed in a heap desperately trying to get at least a bit of my breath back.

The Danish guy sitting next to me was very chatty and didn't make any complaints about my lack of shower in the morning. It didn't take long at all for the adrenaline to wear off and I slowly started to feel more and more ill; I'm not sure what was wrong with me, but it felt worse than just a hangover and a bit of motion sickness. I was given lots of water and comfort by the guy next to me and so in honor of his kindness and him immense height I awarded him the new name of "The Great Dane" which he seemed to like very much. Fortunately for me he was also feeling less than 100% and wanted to get some sleep, so that left me to be able to get a bit of much-needed rest without coming across of rude and ungrateful!

In order to reach Copacabana the bus had to cross part of Lake Titicaca on a man-powered raft, whilst we all went in a small speed boat, which of course had an extra little fee tied to it. One of my friends from the pool table in La Paz (Tom) was also on the same bus, and when we reunited on this boat I discovered that he too was suffering. My plan was to go straight from Copacabana to the nearby Isla Del Sol. As I was not feeling great I really should have stayed in Copacabana instead, but as I had Tom and the Great Dane at my side I stuck with my original plan. It turns out that the boat ride to Isla Del Sol was a lot longer than any of us anticipated (about three hours), and although I managed not to be sick for the duration of the journey, I did not make it off the boat before throwing up over the side. This at least cleared the herd of people who were pestering us to go the their hostels.

Not only were we unprepared for the length of the boat journey, we were also unaware that Isla Del Sol is actually a mountain witha load of Inca steps to climb before a long steep trail to the village at the top. If I had known this, I would definitely not have taken my entire backpack, and I would've thought twice about going whilst feeling like death. Never in my life have I walked so slowly, dragging myself along with the sun beathing down on me as I struggled to keep the contents of my stomach where it belonged. I think that we made it about two thirds of the way up before my body almost collapsed and I gave in to Tom's offer to carry my backpack for me as well as his own. There were no donkeys around and I could not go any further with it myself so I welcomly accepted this gesture; I have no idea how he managed to walk up as he wasn't feeling good either. We continued to work our way to the top of the island and I was impressed that I managed to keep my stomach-emptying count to just one more episode. We found a nice hostel with a beautiful double view of the lake. Then I had a cup of tea and went straight to bed, sleeping right through until the next morning.

Whilst the Great Dane was up for a six hour roundtrip walk to visit the ruins on the other side of the island the following day, I was still not feeling great. Therefore Tom and I set out on a shorter walk to some smaller ruins, but at some point we took a wrong turning and just ended up on a beach! Neither of us were in the mood to get back up to the top and walk so more, so we decided that we didn't need to see the ruins afterall.

That evening my apetite had retuend and we had a nice trout dinner. Trout is pretty much all there is on the menu here, but it is really fresh and tasty. After dinner I sat outside and admired the beautiful night sky and abundance of stars that were visible as it was amazingly clear. The following morning I got up super-early to watch the sun rise over Lake Titicaca, which was really beautiful and peaceful. After breakfast we packed up and headed back down to the shore for the boat ride back to Copacabana which was a lot more pleasant on the return leg! After almost a month in Bolivia it came time to take a bus out of the country and into my next desintation country of Peru.