* lake titicaca - sick as a dog can be....

once i got to copacabana i decided to do 17km trek from copacabana to yamapupata to get some views of the lake titicaca and the small villages around. it all started lovely: me, my backpack and even the old scouts´songs in my head, people on the way greeting me and refusing to belive that im going by meself and that my husband is not with me :) amazing views of the lake titicaca, isla del sol and later isla de la luna. no gringos on the horizon. maybe a bit too hard to catch my breath, but this is to be expected at 4km altitude.on the way i get attacked by 2 dogs, but once i start screeaming ´ayudame` there comes a senora with a stick and chases the dogs away. somehow half way through i started feeling really sick, got a fever and had to go on a side of the road... the trek is getting harder and harder and im having less and less energy, i need to stop every few meters to lie on the ground...no cars nor people on the horizon to save me. if i could have just quit and lied down on the side of the road i would have, but regardless if i come back to copacabana or keep walking to yamupupata it is a few kilomiters each way. i thought i would just break down in tears...no more photos.. somehow i managed to get to yamapupata and found a little pier with few boats which could take me to isla del sol. here i had to choose if i wanna go with a motor boat, quite expensive, with a young capitan or if i take a rowing boat, cheapper, but with a man who looks as if he was a 100 years old. im thinking: ´he is so old, it is not right to use his energy for rowing... but then if he is here that means that he needs to work and needs the money... and it must be easier for the young guy to earn money than for him´ so i decide to take a rowing boat. on the boat i feel so sick that im falling asleep (or loosing consciuosness, hard to say now) and burn my face so much that the skin is still peeling off. the old man makes me pay more than agreed but when he treatens to leave me at the very tip of Isla del Sol where i would still have to walk a great bit to get to hostels i agree. this is how money is made on sick people i imagine. they have no energy to bargain or even defend the original price and pay whatever are told....i was supposed to go to a hostel where sheen was staying but on the island i have no energy to climb so i allow a little girl to lead me to a hostel lower on the hill. she must think that there is something really wrong with me when i need to sit down every 10 steps. she gives me some leaf to smell and says it is good for the alttitude sickness, but i know this is not it, coz in la paz, potosi, uyuni i was fine. in the hostel i want an individual room and they only have twins left so they make my pay for both beds but again i have no energy to argue nor look for another place. i ask the guy who runs the place if there is a doctor on the island, he says ´no´and if i want to take a boat to copacabana it is gonna be expensive and dangerous as none wants to go at night. im dozing for few hours and then realize that i have no more water. i climb up a bit to buy water and force myself to go up to find sheen´s hostel. maybe we will figure something out together. really nasty senora tells me that my friend is not staying there and tells me to go away. i know he is there but have no choice but leave. on the way down i meet some people i had meet along the way and they say they will send someone to check on me later. after a few visits to the loo i fall asleep. the owners´dogs comes to my room and falls asleep too. later sheen, jola and thomas come and comfort me:) thomas says that as long as the dog is here im fine, as they sense death and then walk away! imagine my scare when i come back from one of the countless loo visits to see the dog is not there!!! but it was just hiding under the bed. anyhow, i sleep poorly, run to the loo every hour or so. in the morning sheen and jola come to get me to the boat so i can go to the hospital in copacabana. from my bed, through the open doors i watch the sun rising over the mountains and the lake and this is the only pretty view i ll remember from here. the guys drag me down the hill and off i go to copacabana. i wait and wait and wait but once the doctor asks me what i ate and i say : ¨everything´he shakes his head and says:; ´disenteria´. i get antybiotics and are sent to bed. i spend 2 more days in copacabana recovering, bored to death, but the only acvtivities i can force myself to are: washing my towel and paiting my toe nails... i cant stop thinking of my mum´s food... after 2 days of anytbiotics i recover enough to get on a bus to peru. it must have been water i drank at the pampas. so i have learnt my lesson: be hyper carefull about the water... the trip continues through the floating islands on the peruvian side of titicaca to cusco.

the yellow picture is to illustarate how they sell crisps over there :) from very very big bags.