Thursday, June 17th: South to North and andle-lit dinner

South to North and a bit back and forth
Our first trek of this holiday, yee haa! The challenge is simple: It’s 8:30, so we’ve got 5 hours to walk the trail to the North end of the island, visit the ruins, then walk a half hour back to Challapampa to hop on the 1:30PM boat back to Copacabana. If possible, we’d like to squeeze in a proper lunch. The North-South trail is officially listed as a 3-4 hour walk, so no time to lose. The challenge is on!

We skip breakfast in Yumani, preferring to be out in the open. The first five minutes of trail are all about dodging lama-dung. No need to carry extra weight on our soles at this altitude, right? Ten minutes later we arrive at a checkpoint and two guards tell us that we are now leaving Yumani territory. We need a new ticket, 15 Bolivianos, which will give us access to the rest of the island: ruins, trails, you name it. Everything else on the island? Yes, Señor. Even the Aymara culture museum in Challa, in the middle of the island? Ah, no for that one you will have to pay separately, Señor. Whatever.

The sunlight gains strength as we make our way up to the North end of the island. By 10 we locate a nice spot on a hill for our Oreo cookie breakfast. Far below us a local farmer whistles while he herds his lamas to fertile grazing ground. We’re one with nature and we’re one with our Oreo cookies. It’s been 1,5 hours and no soul has crossed us. Then, around 11AM it happens: we cross a group of 5. The local tour guide of the group greets us quickly, then continues his chat to two middle-aged, over-tanned women. Their pale English husbands follow at a little distance. I greet them when I come within hearing distance, but they are too involved in a serious discussion to immediately greet back.  “….but it’s only in the last two weeks of World War II that…oh… Hello there”.  Are all English people over 50 years old fanatic about warfare? Food for thought.
We reach the Chincana ruins on the North end of the island in under 3,5 hours, the pressure is off. These ruins really are just a bunch of neatly stacked stones. Okay, they’ve withstood the tooth of time for several hundreds of years, like other Inca buildings of this sort, but there are only about 15 rooms and no decorations, no statues, or other items of specific interest to see, just bricks. These rooms were definitely not conceived for tall Belgians, the walls come up to waist height for me. Luckily there’s no roof on them, so I can only hit my head on doorways. To be honest, after my visit to Macchu Picchu on a previous trip no Inca ruins can really impress me much anymore.

Ceremony in a splash
Next to the ruins, a traditionally dressed Bolivian is setting up shop on what we understood to be the very first sacrificial stone used for animal sacrifice in the Inca Empire. Unbelievable, the guts this guy has, that’s a tourist site! I briskly walk over to him, intending to let him know that there is loads of space to sell stuff all around the ruins to sell his trinkets, but upon arrival I notice no souvenirs at all, the man must be some sort of shaman. When I ask whether I can take a picture of him, he suggests that he provides blessings, and it’ll only take 5 minutes. While other tourists stop and look over from afar, I get my first Aymara blessing ever. The pouring of cold, sacred “Isla Del Sol” water over my head at theend of the ritual is refreshing both for me and nearby photographers. Blandine is laughing her head off, I choose to ignore that, because I’m blessed now, I will have success in all aspects, even in explaining that this was necessary to get great pictures.
The blessing also gets us into Challapampa in time for our ferry back to Copacabana. And there’s even time to try a delicious serving of local lake trout. 

The afternoon is spent boating back to Copacabana. Should we sit inside the boat, or on the top deck? We choose to lay out on the benches inside the boat, while most other tourists sit on the deck. What a blessed decision: already yesterday we were looking rather burnt and our hike this morning has gained us prominent status amongst any self-respecting redneck family.

Candle-lit dinner
Upon arrival in Copacabana we check into a cheap hostel, then walk into town again. The friendly hostel manager recommends we take the room with free TV, so we can watch the World Cup. Great idea! We take the room get the room, but the TV doesn’t come on. Ah yes, there’s a town-wide power outage, but the hostal manager was told that the power will be up again in 10 minutes. Grrrr, ten Bolivian minutes could mean anything. There’s nothing else to do but wait to get access again to hot water, to feed my IPOD battery, to let restaurants cook for us. We’re such energy slaves! Let’s walk into town, shall we? Night is setting, some shops and restaurants have closed, candle light shines out of others. 
We walk into a candle-lit sports bar without any big-screen TVs on (duh). Bummer, but what can we do about it? Letùs not whine and dine on whatever the chef can whip us up. A gas-grilled burger and several cold beers later, the light switches back on, just in time for the all-deciding Game 7 between the Lakers and the Celtics. The French guys we've been chatting with will stay for the NBA Final too, reason enough to order some more cold Pacenas. The game’s a low-scoring nail-biter all the way to the end, with tough defence and bad offensive shooting, definitely not one a game that would convert people into watching basketball, but Lakers win it in the end. It’s been a late night and my candle is out. We’ll make sure not to start too early tomorrow.