La Isla Del Sol + Hello Peru!

I visited the birthplace of the Sun and all I got was this lousy sunburn!

Just kidding... I daresay La Isla Del Sol is maybe the most amazing place I've ever been on Earth. Really. Go there! It's an hourlong boatride from Copacabana out in the middle of Lake Titicaca and was the most sacred spot in the Inca Empire, supposedly where the Sun God himself was born. Anyway, after a day in Copacabana I spent a long and sunny afternoon wandering around old silent Inca ruins, exploring empty beaches, hiking the length of the 12km island from North to South, and just generally getting my mind blown by the views and the incredible Aymara people still living and working the terraced fields sloping gently down either side of the island towards the water like it was 1300AD and the Spanish never found this spot. It felt like a dream, like the whole place was floating in the sky, ancient and full of strange powerful vibes. Earth, Air, Water, Fire... Now that I think about it, Mauna Kea on Hawaii is maybe the only other place on the planet where I felt this strong Earth-energy... not to sound too woo-woo Californian or anything, but for reals.

I spent the night and got to watch the sunset and sunrise and it was like I was literally sitting at the very top of the world as it sunk down over Peru and the stars came popping out all over the place and then hours later over on the other side of the island I sat on a rock and waited while the Sun rose again over the Cordillera Real with the sky on fire for a good long while before the the Sun God itself finally appeared over Mt. Illampu's shoulder... it was so impressive I felt like I should be sacrificing a llama or something!

Then yesterday - after recovering from the sunrise - I took an early morning ferry back to Copa, grabbed my stuff, hopped on a bus for the easiest border crossing yet into Peru... Yay Peru!! and rolled into Puno on the west coast of the lake in perfect time to catch an onward bus to Arequipa 5 hrs away, leaving in 10min, enough for a bathroom break and a bag of popcorn to snack on. Rolled into Arequipa around 9:30PM after watching hours and hours of very poorly produced Cumbia music videos, each of which featured an ensemble of hairy men in cheap suits and dancing leggy women in short skirts with the camera mostly focusing on their butts like some weird version of a mysogynistic BET music video mixed with a Peruvian fantasy of what a dozen Las Vegas strippers would look like... A strange first impression of Peruvian culture to say the least, but I'm going to reserve judgement for a few more days. When I arrived I met up with friend-of-a-friend Gabi, who had kindly made me a reservation at a great little hostel right near the Plaza de Armas. We had some cheap chinese food and shortly thereafter I found myself in a hip Peruvian bar with a band playing covers like "Summer of '69" by Ryan Adams and "Hey Jude" while hot young Peruvians danced and sang along... where was I? What is this country called Peru? It was a long day, to say the least. One of those days where you can't believe you woke up in one place and went to sleep somewhere completely different, like it's hard to believe the world is so big and diverse and crazy and beautiful and full of people all just living and doing their thing on a Thursday night.

Whatever. Enough rambling. The main point is that I'm happy to be in Peru and I absolutely loved Lago Titicaca. More news soon...