Let’s just call these my veggie days because I got super sick from food poisoning, altitude, and dehydration. I managed to get to Isla del Sol and freeze, as well as run out of potable water. SO FUN.

Things that went down:

• The terrace I went to next to the beach was only serving drinks because the cook apparently had too much fun celebrating Dia de Los Muertes the previous night.
• Festivities mentioned above went until 5am and even though I was nowhere near them, heard EVERYTHING.
• Super easy to buy boat tickets to Isla del Sol, literally got a 13:30 departure a few hours before.
• Isla del Sol is a sacred Incan island where the sun god was born. Since I learned how much the Incans worshiped the sun at Machu Picchu, this seemed like a BFD.
• Def a mistake going at 13:30 since you spend 1.5 hours on a boat and get 1 hour to explore before the return trip.
• …Or was it a mistake? Isla del Sol involves climbing so many stairs and I wasn’t about to spend the entire time hiking up a mountain. The Inca gardens were incredible and it was kind of golden hour so my photos are legit.
• Apparently you can’t go to the northern part because it’s been blocked off and there were riots… so I feel like I didn’t miss much.
• If you boat on Titicaca wear about 10000 layers of clothes. It’s cold and windy!

One highlight was seeing very stereotypical Spaniards on the boat. They started talking about Spanish politics while chainsmoking cigs, saying “vale” a lot, and drinking straight from the bottles they brought on board in the middle of the day. Aka botellon. When I looked over and asked which part of Spain they were from, they looked at me like I was crazy and asked how I could tell. As if it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the entire world haha.

Anyways these days were super chill. After several hours of drinking water and eating about 5 crackers, I took an earlier bus back to La Paz and worked remotely from the rooftop restaurant/bar at my hostel. (Loki Hostel — it’s great btw). Totally forgot I booked all private hostel rooms this trip. I feel so fancy! So worth paying $20 a night instead of $10 a night for a dorm haha. I think I’ve gotten too old to share a room.

Looking forward to sharing more about Day 4 (Death Road) and thoughts on La Paz tomorrow!