2012-05-29
We took a boat from Copacaba to the north end of the island, visited the ruins there, walked the entire length of the island, and then spent the night in a small town on the southern end. It's a beautiful island with ruins dating back to 4000 years ago. There is even a recently discovered sunken temple, but it's not currently publicly accessible. In the evening, I decided I wanted to walk to some ruins on the southern tip of the island. Massey was a bit too tired from the high altitude (4000m) walk across the island to join me, but our friend Emma decided to come. After a half and hour of walking, we came upon a great view of the southern part of the island below and the mainland across the water. The ruins were well below us with many terraces between. I started bounding down the terraces and Emma followed for awhile, but then decided that we wouldn't make it back before dark and wanted to turn back. However, she didn't want to walk back alone. Luckily, just at that moment a dog appeared and escorted her back home while I continued down. When I reached the ruins, I discovered it was really just one building, but it was well preserved. I was disappointed to discover that it had high fence surrounding it to prevent visitors from approaching. There was nobody around and I quickly decided that I hadn't come all that way to look at it through a fence and noticed that the fence was actually only on three sides because the fourth side was a sheer cliff. I hung onto the end fence pole and swung myself out over the cliff and then back to the inside the fence. I crawled through a short dark part of the building to reach a small room that I imagined might have been someone's bedroom once. I sat there for awhile wondering what it was like to live there 4000 years ago and appreciating the fact that since other people were likely to have respected the authority of the fence, I was one of the few people to set foot in the building in modern times. Afterward, I scrambled back up the terraces, took a different path home to enjoy a view of the other side of the island and made it back to town as the sun was setting.
That night, after I had gone to bed, Massey looked outside and said the moonlight made the lake look like it was on fire. I'm sorry I missed it.