Taking a Breather on Isla Del Sol

Travelling can be hard. And exhausting. And overwhelming. And tough. Along with amazing and beautiful and fulfilling. But sometimes a little break (continuing the theme from an earlier post) during a holiday is a necessary thing. 

After a week travelling in Peru, sleeping in hostels, long-haul bus rides, and general culture shock, taking a little breather from the holiday was a welcome addition to our itinerary. We had already planned on spending a night on Isla Del Sol--because why wouldn't you make the time to spend a night on an island on Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake--and it turned out to be just what we needed. 

I first read about Isla del Sol, situated on Lake Titicaca, as a stop on our transportation, Peru Hop. Through the company we were able to arrange the boat ride over to the island (and return the next day). Unlike the rest of our trip where we had each night's accommodation booked, we decided to wing it. Which you kind of have to do since very, very, very few of the businesses on the island have websites or even an internet connection.

We lugged our bags up a massive flight of stairs with a gazillion steps and kept heading up. We had made friends with a couple on the boat ride over and decided to join them to their bed and breakfast and see if there were any more rooms available. Along the hike up, we stopped for a rest and were completely struck by the view. Partly for this reason, partly from the beckoning woman and puppy, but mostly because we were dead tired from the walk up, we entered the courtyard of this B&B.

But really, you would have stopped here too with a view like this.

The back of our B&B

We settled into our small, but clean room. We were told the shower on our terrace level wasn't working and we later discovered there wasn't hot water even in the shower that did work and all the toilets had the accepted barrel of water beside it with a container inside to be used to pour water into the toilet to make it flush. These were all things I was coming accustomed to expecting in Bolivia. But with a view like ours, a perfect spot to do some reading, and being forced to disconnect from our devices we couldn't really complain.

On day two of our time on Isla Del Sol we did some exploring of the little roads and pathways. There is actually several archaeologically significant spots to visit on the island, unfortunately Eimear had fallen ill and wasn't up for strenuous hiking, which tbh was completely fine by me.

Three building materials: field stones, handmade clay brick, and Terra Cotta brick

ingenious clothes drying technique on a tin roof 

Traffic jam on Isla Del Sol

For dinner that night Eimear and I headed out to find food before the sun had completely set (but head torches were at the ready for our very dark walk back up to our room). As with much of our experience on the island, we wandered and were beckoned over by an older woman and brought into a room that appeared to be an empty restaurant. She handed us a Spanish menu and we muddled through making our selection. We opted for fresh lake trout, vegetables, potatoes (4,000 varieties grow in the Andean highlands) and rice with a (dusty) bottle of Bolivian beer, Pacena.

BEST FISH OF MY LIFE!

Have you ever taken a little break during a holiday? What do you do to take a breather when away from home?

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