On the morning of 6th January I woke up early, suddenly knowing that I did, after all, want to visit the island of Amantaní. Basically I figured that for the next days or weeks I will be running into people who have been there, and I don’t want to keep hearing how great it was and how I should have gone there!

After breakfast at the hotel, I checked out and went down to the harbour. Like for Uros, getting a boat required negotiation, this time with the help of a large group of Austrians – 2 guys and 4 girls. The price was agreed at about 3 dollars per person each way. Some others turned up and boarded the boat with us, including a young lady from Pakistan (who is a doctor), a Costa Rican, a Mexican, 2 Brazilians and a Norwegian. The girl from Norway is from Tromso which seemed a comically long way away from Lake Titicaca. Before heading out across the main part of Lake Titicaca we made a brief stop at one of the Uros Islands – it was a small and rather smelly Uros Island, and it wasn’t clear why we had stopped.

Heading out into Titicaca proper, the snowcapped Bolivian Andes became visible to the east and northeast. They looked very close, perhaps only 30 km away, but were actually 5 times as far – this trick being a result of the exceptionally clear air here at 4000 metres. A lot of entertaining multinational chat took place on the boat, and by late morning we approached the island of Amantaní and docked. The first priority was to find somewhere to stay. People were offering accommodation as we stepped off the boat. The Pakistani, the Costa Rican and I headed uphill with one friendly local, who showed us the accommodation he had to offer. It looked reasonable so the 3 of us decided to stay there.

After lunch I took some photos of the kids at the house where I was staying, and then went for a wander up hill. I found the main square – Plaza de Amantaní – and then continued up towards the hill in the centre of the island. Of course, due to the altitude, it took an unreasonable amount of effort getting up the hill. At the very top were the ruins of a temple or ceremonial site of some sort. I stayed up there to take some photos and watch the sun start to go down. Later I came quickly downhill and somehow managed to find my lodgings again in the gathering dusk.

On the way through the village I noticed coca leaves being sold. I’ve been told that chewing coca leaves is something that the locals do in order to feel more energetic at high altitude, so I bought a little packet, along with some lime that supposedly helps extract the “active ingredient”.

There had been talk of a sunrise hike to the top of the hill in the morning, but that didn’t happen – the Pakistani doctor said she wasn’t feeling well, and the ascent didn’t look worthwhile due to the amount of cloud around. Later, after breakfast, I said goodbye to her and the Costa Rican (they were leaving that morning) and then went to explore the coast of the island. It didn’t take long before I decided that the only logical thing to do was to walk the whole way round the island, which I calculated might take about 3 hours. But the day was dry and calm, the sun now sparkled brilliantly on the frigid waters of Titicaca, and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day.

In the end it took me 5 hours – I stopped in several places to chat to local people – a few were harvesting what appeared to be seaweed. The shoreline itself was very varied and beautiful, with opportunities to scramble up and down conglomerate rocks here and there.

Finally I made it back to my starting point and declared the circumnavigation of Amantaní complete. I had a long siesta in the afternoon and caught up on postcard writing in the evening.

In the morning (8th January) I checked out and headed down to the harbour. Some familiar faces were there. I found the Israelis from Ecuador, who said they were waiting for Paul and Rachel (Ireland and New Zealand) who were also heading back to Puno that day. The latter 2 turned up a bit late and only just made it before the boat left.

It was another brilliant day with the sun beating down mercilessly on the huge high-altitude lake. The temperature swing between day and night is astonishing at this altitude – 15 Celsius in the day, which feels much hotter in the bright sun, then dipping to close to freezing during the night.

I decided to try the coca leaf thing again. When I tried it before there was no discernible effect, but people were saying that the lime made the difference, so I had lime this time.

Back at Puno all of us went to the recommended Monterrey restaurant to have their “famous” trout dish for lunch. After that, several of the group went off to organise a colectivo (shared taxi) to the Bolivian border, but this apparently turned into a major hassle. In the mean time I got talking to Henrik and Michael from Denmark who were also headed for Bolivia and had figured out the public bus option. So in the end most of us opted for the public bus which was seriously uncomfortable but quite fast. It got us round the south side of Lake Titicaca to the nondescript border town of Yunguyo. By the time we got there it was dark and the border was closed, with no chance to get over to Copacabana in Bolivia. So we ended up staying in a very grotty hotel with limited room selection, and I ended up sharing a room with Paul and Rachel.

Tomorrow, with luck, we will all be in the Bolivian capital of La Paz…