Closer to the Sun

The only thing that could've pulled me away from La Paz, Bolivia was the lure of Lake Titicaca and the Isla del Sol. Lake Titicaca is one of the highest navigatable lakes in the world nestled in between Bolivia and Peru. At 3,800 meters (or 14,400 ft -- higher than Mt. Hood to give a little comparison), Lake Titicaca's altitude means thin air, sun burns and according to Incan mythology, proximity to the gods.

The entire lake was a sacred site to the Incans. Their world was created when God Viracocha emerged from the lake to create the sun, the moon, the stars, and the Incans. Isla del Sol, the largest island on the lake, is the birthplace of the sun. I took a boat from Copacabana, Bolivia to Isla del Sol, to pay my dues to the sun for solstice. Let there be light.

There are no cars or paved roads, just a couple of small communities made up of about 800 families who fish and farm, and supply food and beds for tourists to augment their income. We stayed on the north end, where a small sandy beach offered a perfect location for admiring the sun, and by night, the stars.

The preserved Incan ruins on the northern side of the island from 2,000 BC are remnants of a convent for chosen women, stone walls to guard their prized virgins. A path cuts down the center of the island to the south whichmakes for a great day's hike. The views are sweet but the altitude takes a toll... rest stops necisary.

Upon returning to the mainland from Isla del Sol, I was delighted to learn my good friend Becky Brown just gave birth to her son, whom she aptly named Yapsa, which means the light of the sun, moon and stars. Loving life so filled with light.

Crossing the border into Peru, I explored a couple more islands on the western side of the lake. Taquila is a small island with a smattering of inhabitants who practice their traditional trade of weaving and maintain their indigenous way of life, with a bit of Christianity thrown in.

The last islands we visited are not really islands but rather floating masses of tutoro reeds upon which the Uros people have lives since pre-Incan times. When the Incans threatened the Uros' laidback fishing lifestyle they began to constuct their homes on large rafts made from the reeds that grow in the shallows of Lake Titicaca. The rafts are lashed into the ground, but are movable, and therefore able to flaot from their aggressors. The peaceful Uros live on and off the reeds. The tuturo reed is used to build their islands, their boats for fishing, the wood for their cooking fires and small nicknacks made for the tourists who come to marvel at their uniquely simple and peaceful way of life.

Interesting to note how much tourism has changed this isolated place on the earth. While feeling blessed that I am able to witness and expierience this unique place and peoples, I'm uncertain of how I feel hearing that tourism has now overtaken fishing as the Uro's mainstay, for example. I wonder how much longer we have until you can take a taxi from the north side of Isla del Sol to the south side. Oh the joys and sorrows of globalization...