Day 5: Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 (Any Road – George Harrison)

We got up early in the morning and packed a backpack. We met up with Phil and Vicki outside their hotel. They had bananas and we had some granola which we all ate for breakfast.

The plan was to hike the “low” road near the beach the whole length of the island. Phil and Vicki were staying in a town called Chiapampa that night, but Ranz and I were coming back to our end of the island in the town of Yumani.

We tried to go off the main road to bypass a “toll booth,” but were unsuccessful. A guy stopped us and made us pay in order to pass.

We walked along the dirt road which was lined with stones. There were lots of walls made of stones piled up. The countryside was beautiful and the atmosphere serene. We passed some locals herding their sheep down the road. Ranz told me that a lot of the locals don’t like to have their picture taken because they believe the camera sucks their soul out, so I tried to sneak some shots when they were farther down the road.

We stopped for a snack in a small town (I think it was called Cha’lla). We sat on some rocks, looked out at the lake, and ate some cheese and bread.

Another observation about Bolivians is that they are creative. They use any odd or end to get a job done. It may not look good, but at least it will be functional. For instance, on this hike we passed a house that had used a pair of old flip-flops as hinges for their gate to their yard.

After another hour or two of hiking we reached Cha’llapampa (this is pronounced with a neat “ch” sound at the beginning), where Phil and Vicki were staying that night. They found a room at a hostel and we dropped our bags off and went and got some lunch (more trout for me). Ranz and I grabbed our stuff after lunch and parted with Phil and Vicki heading for the Incan (I think) ruins.

The ruins were kind of neat, but there wasn’t much to do except look at them. There wasn’t even a plaque or anything with information. Oh well.

After a brief break at the ruins and a round or two of the movie game, we headed back towards the other end of the island, this time taking the “high” road which runs on the ridge of the island. This was pretty cool because you could look out over both sides of the island and see the lake and mountains in the distance. We played a bunch of rounds of the movie game, the majority of which Ranz won, but I steadily improved. We got back to our town of Yumani a little before 5pm.

5:15pm – After waking up around 6:30am and watching the sunrise, we met up with Phil and Vicki up near their hostel. We hiked the length of the island along a dirt road. We stopped and had a snack on some rock and ate a tasty trout lunch in another town called Challapampa. Ranz and I then walked to some Incan ruins then walked back to our hostel on the other side of the island. I’d say we did at least eight miles total while carrying a bag the whole time and up and down hills. We saw a lot of sheep, pigs, cows, donkeys, etc. I asked a lady where the bathroom was in Spanish.

The walk was pretty. The countryside reminded me of Hobitton from the Lord of the Rings movies.

We had to pay a “toll” to use the road. They tried to charge us a number of different places, but luckily we had our two passes which seemed to get us through most “checkpoints.”

Eucalyptus trees are common on the island. Also, there are a lot of tourists on the island.

8:23pm – Had dinner at Las Velas (The Candles) where we met up last night with Phil and Vicki. Had a pizza and some good conversation. Also, had some coca tea after eating. Walked back in the dark and were “chased” by a burro.

This night when we left Las Velas, we did not have a flashlight, so we were completely in the dark walking back to our hostel through the woods. We had passed three donkeys on the way there, so when we approached the place where they were I tried to see if they were still there. They were. At some point we had started saying “Donkey?” like Shrek whenever we saw a donkey, so we of course did this when we passed these three donkeys. One of the donkeys started following us. After a while we thought it had stopped following, then we heard a loud noise and it came running down this hill towards us. It was really funny. It eventually stopped following us.

We got back to our hostel and climbed into bed, exhausted from a full day of hiking.