I highly recommend reading day 1 first.
Ok you're done reading about day 1 at Isla del Sol. Day 2 consisted of lots of hiking and paying the occasional toll to the locals along the path to Yumani in the south end of the island. It was a good day.
We woke up to see the sunrise. Luckily this didn't require a hike, just a short walk to the other side of Challapampa.
This is the hostel we stayed at. It was pretty awesome, and somehow very warm in there at night, which was a real change from what we've gotten used to.
I think I took this same picture the day before but who cares. The water wasn't shimmering then.
Here's a view of Challapampa from way up on what we determined was the highest or at least very close to the highest point on the island. We seriously could not leave this place. Any direction you looked you would see just about the most amazing view of your life.
Way off in the back of this picture and to the left is about where we watched the sunset from the day before.
This is the path all the way back to the north end of the island. This is still pretty early in the hike south though. This was at a checkpoint where we had to buy tickets to continue.
Skip ahead 3 hours or so and we're in Copacabana again. While Caroline and Conrad ate dinner by the beach, I decided to climb Cerro Calvario instead. Copacabana is actually a site of pilgrimage due to the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana, the big white structure in the middle of the city on the left side of the picture. Because of all the pilgrims visiting the city, they built a site dedicated to the stations of the cross way up on the highest point overlooking the city. I was hungry, but I really wanted to go up there so I skipped dinner. It was worth it.
View of the bay from way up high.
Here's the basilica. I had to zoom in really far so it's a little blurry.
On top of Cerro Calvario.
How could a student at a Marianist university explain not seeing the famous statue of Mary if they found themselves in Copacabana? When I left for Cerro Calvario I had about an hour before I had to meet Caroline and Conrad to catch our bus. I hustled. This is in the courtyard outside of the basilica.
The entrance.
They were pretty big on no picture taking in there. There were people doing more than just touring the place who were praying so I decided to be as little of a disrespectful jerk as possible and just look. I'll try and google image some pictures for you. I didn't have much time either, so I asked a couple tourists where the statue of Mary was and weaved through hallways and up stairs until I found it. Then I had to peace out of there because I still needed to find some snacks to eat on the bus for dinner.
Here's a link to a picture with some info of the statue http://saints.sqpn.com/our-lady-of-copacabana/
More cool pictures I didn't take http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootsintheoven/5849715960/
Speaking of the bus, it broke down just outside Copacabana and we had to wait for another one to pick us up. Also, I got to play with my new panorama picture taking app on my iPod quite a bit on this trip. Pretty much all the best pictures were taken using that, but I still have yet to find a place with wifi where I can upload them to the internet. One day I'll post a link on here to a whole bunch of them.
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