island of the sun.

after leaving the comfort of dao and marco's fantastic hospitality in santiago, we boarded a plane for la paz, bolivia.. landing and taking a taxi through the crazy, congested, and populated mountain streets, we found a hostal and did our best to settle in. danelle got a chest infection our last few days in santiago, so pair that with an altitude of 3600m, and cold weather; we moved pretty slow for a few days..

we spent two days walking around the city.. lots of wool knits and knick-knacks galore in the expanse of markets that seemed to continue as far as the eye could see. danelle and i found a coca museum which was extremely interesting. it walked you through the entire history of the coca plant - as the basis of their culture, and their most important religion.. the discovery of cocaine and it's initial use as an anesthetic in medicine, continuing on to it's exploitation.. it gave a step-by-step process of how you make it.. (just kidding) one fact really surprised me: coca-cola is one of only three companies world-wide that still legally buys coca leaves. they use it as flavoring in their products.. need an extra boost? drink coke. literally.

after la paz, we took a bus to copacabana. after a few hours of driving, we were ushered off the bus. having no idea what was meant by it, we stood around looking entirely lost and confused until someone finally pointed us over to a dock.. we got on a boat, and watched as our bus boarded a ferry, and we crossed the river together meeting on the other side. another hour drive and we arrived in copacabana. a small city wedged between two mountains, right on lake titicaca. sitting at 3800m, we are thankfully all over our boughts of altitude sickness, as minimal as they were for some of us.

meeting camil on the bus, we made friends and found an adorable hostel together. the next morning we woke and hiked the mountain to the west of town. chewing coca leaves for the first time, we breathed a little easier and reached the summit moments before it started to spit.. and then quickly realising the spit was actually small pellets of ice, we hiked down the mountain in a hail storm.. soaked but in high spirits, we got back into town.. dried off and warmed up with some hot tea.. the clouds left and the afternoon was sunny and warm.. we lay on hammocks with our books and relaxed.. sheep grazing around us, mowing the lawn.. at about six o'clock we hiked up the eastern peak to check out the sunset. unfortunately it was cloudy so there wasn't more than a small sliver of fluorescent orange poking through the grey.. but the view of the lake and surrounding islands were amazing. hard to comprehend a lake of that size. it was danelle's birthday, so we freshened up and went out to dinner. free-pour pisco sours and mojitos.. we left full and in high spirits.

the next morning we said goodbye to camil and went down to the docks at 8:30 to catch a boat to the 'isle del sol'. our boat kept puttering out and having to be restarted throughout the journey.. quite the experience. a canoe may have been a faster option.. but we finally made it, getting off on the north side of the island and hiking 10km down to the south tip to catch another boat back that afternoon. it was an amazing trek.. crossing peaks at over 4000m, the views were spectacular and the weather was perfect. not too hot, not too cold.

today we woke to a misty rain.. perfect excuse to stretch out, relax, and read books. we were hoping to get down to uyuni tomorrow, but with strikes and flooding, we aren't quite sure what will happen yet. only time will tell..