Lake Titicaca

South America » Bolivia » La Paz Department » Lake Titicaca
June 14th 2006

Published: July 21st 2006

It´s that time for another update from our travels. After the Inca Trek we arrived back at Cuzco for 2 more nights. After a tiring trek we decided to stay at some nicer places with hot water, and get a few good meals. There are only 2 good places to go at nite, Mama America and Mama Africa, so we spent our last nites in Cuzco at these clubs, learning to salsa dance as an added bonus, cos I know it will come in useful in Argentina 😊 Anyway after our last nite in Cuzco, we had to get up at 6 to catch a bus to Puno, the harbour city. The place was pretty much what we expected, with beggers and shoeshiners lining the cobbled dirty streets. We weren't expecting much of a nightlife in Puno, and we were only there to get the boat across Lake Titicaca, but we did manage to find a small reggae bar with a friendly crowd. We also managed to find some cozy restaurants, although me and Nik were starting to wonder about the places we were eating at. Most nights were candlelit dinners with romantic music, but we saw the funny side of it, especially as it was good food with a cost equivalent to about 4 pounds for 2 big meals.

The next morning after a night in Puno, we took a bus with a group of other people to the port and boarded the boat to go to the floating islands and Taquile Island. The floating islands were quite incredible. They were made of buoyant totora reeds, and to the locals known as the Islas Flotantes, with some measuring the size of half a football pitch.

Its not just the islands made of reeds either, its everything on the island as well, from houses to canoes to furniture. I think the guide said there are roughly 150 of these man-made islands, with the oldest being over 100 years old. It didn´t really make much sense to me as to why they lived there, when mainland was only 25 minutes away, but apparantly its good business from tourists. I thought it was kinda dangerous, as they have fires on these islands, and everything around is flammable, but who am I to argue with an old tradition. Anyway after visiting the floating islands, we got back onto the boat and took an hour and a half trip to Taquile. The island was interesting with some amazing views, and originally we had planned to stay at one of the locals houses for a night, but there wasn´t that much to do and we had seen everything to see, so instead we got onto the boat and headed back to Puno. Me and Nik went out for another ´romantic´ meal again, with candles and soppy music, although I did ask the waiter to change it seeing as we were the only ones in there. They didn´t............So after the meal, we took a stroll to our favourite reggae bar and had a couple of drinks before heading back to our hotel for another early wake up the next day. I have to say its amazing how almost the entire Peruvian police force seems to be made up of women, and all of them look like the same person. They´re really friendly, and always willing to help tourists, one even escorted us somewhere cos we weren´t sure of the directions, although I think she was just flirting with Nik. So after getting back to the hotel and watching a couple of Friends and ER episodes on TV, we went to sleep and got up early for our bus to Copacabana in Bolivia.

After a 5 hour bus journey, we arrived at a sunny little town next to the lake, although it really felt more like a seaside resort. The first thing we did was to book our boat trip to Isla del Sol, which is where the Incas believed the sun was born, and I can see why. After arriving at the island, the local kids run at you before you even step off the boat offering to carry your bags and guide you to hostels. Well we didn´t need guidance because there was only one route you could take, and that was up, and we also didn´t feel right about strapping a 15kg bag to a kid who couldn´t have been much older than 10, so we said no to them started our walk up the steep steps of the island. Well, everything was going ok until this one kid would not leave us alone. He could see that we were struggling like everyone else to walk up this mountain side with our big bags, but for some reason he would not leave us alone. He must of asked about 50 times if we wanted our bags carried for us, and at one point we felt like dumping them on him, and seeing how far he got. We could understand that this is how they make their living, but after saying no so many times, we lost our sympathy and understanding and just got pissed off by him. He followed us the whole way, all the time telling us it was another hour walk, really trying to wear us down mentally. Whenever we stopped for a break he would stop, sometimes hiding behind a bush and then carrying on following us once we started moving again. We finally reached the top of the island, and found ourselves a hostel, at which point he left us alone, but not before trying to get money off us....Ye, nice try but I don´t think so. We dumped our stuff at the hostel, and then decided to take a walk around the island. We knew we were there for only one reason, to see what is supposedly the most beautiful sunset and sunrise in the world, which is why you can understand the Incas believing that the sun was born at this island.

Unfortunately we had no money for food, only enough for accommodation, as we thought we could get money on the island. Instead we invested in a pack of cookies and some oreos as our night time meal, and headed to the highest point on the island to see the sunset. We were surrounded by couples enjoying the romantic setting, but me and Nik had our cameras out ready to get some photos of the sun going down. Unfortunately I was more interested in other stuff around us, and by the time I looked back up at the horizon I had missed the best of it. Nik got some good photos though, and after the sun had set we headed back down through the village to our hostel. We were really confused about where everyone else had gone, because we know that there ere a lot of tourists that arrived to spend a night on the island, and when we walked about we couldn´t see anyone, it was like they had vanished form the island. It was another early night for us two, with yet again another early morning start. We had to get the early boat off the island so that we could catch the bus from Copacabana to La Paz. After getting back to Copacabana, we booked our bus and then went to get some lunch, as we couldn´t remember the last time we had a meal. Well, lunch wasn´t spectacular anyway, as we opted for the cheapskate meal. It doesn´t really get much cheaper than 1 pound each for a soup, spaghetti bolognase and jelly, although I should really remember the rule that you get what you pay for. The soup wasn´t great, I think the chef just dumped everything he had in his kitchen into a bowl of water to make it. The spaghetti bolognase tasted and looked like the chef had cooked some pasta and poured the soup over it, and the jelly didn´t taste much better than the soup with the added benefits of hairs. Wasn´t the best meal, but it filled a gap, and it was something to do while we waited for the bus. I´m glad I listened to Nik when it came to choosing the bus, as I was happy to take one of the little minibuses which were leaving all the time, but Nik was adament that we take a proper tour bus. Well, we found out that people on the minibuses were constantly getting hijackinged and kidnapped, so we were happy with the bus in the end.

The bus journey was going well until about 5-6 hours in when they told everyone to get off the bus and take our passports. We thought we were at Bolivian immigration, so we got off and walked past a little market place, everyone looking kinda lost as to where we had to go. The next thing we knew our bus was on a small ferry going across the lake without us. We were really confused, but couldn´t help laugh about how random it was, I guess it was cos we had just woken up from sleeping on the bus, and were in that tired/funny/confused state. It worked out anyway, cos we were herded onto a little motor boat and taken along side our bus to the other side of the island, where we got back on and carried on with the drive to La Paz.

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