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Published: September 24th 2010
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From La Paz, Copacabana was only a 3 ½ hour bus ride away. As Copacabana sits on a peninsular connected by land only to Peru, we had to take a ferry across the narrowest point of Lake Titicaca, with the coach going on its own barge, and the passengers on a much smaller boat. The main reason for coming to Copacabana, besides crossing into Peru, was to visit the Isla del Sol - the Andean spiritual centre. But as I was not going to the island until the following day, I had a full afternoon to explore Copacabana and see the lake properly for the first time. I really did not like Copacabana town at all. It was filled with souvenir shops all selling the same mass-produced things and restaurants all selling over-priced tourist-fare. The beach was absolutely filthy - I’m sure it would make the beaches in the Gulf of Mexico look clean in comparison. The town’s claim to fame, besides the lake and the Isla del Sol, is its cathedral. As this area was the spiritual centre of the Inca Empire, as well as previous civilisations, the Catholic Church made this the most sacred site in the country in
order to facilitate the conversion of the locals. The cathedral was actually quite impressive, built in a distinctive Moorish style (unusual for South America), and in the side chapel was the sacred statue of the Virgin of Copacabana herself. It is claimed that if it is taken out of the chapel at any time other than during specific festivals, catastrophic flooding will occur. The one redeeming feature to the town is the Cerro Calvario hill which overlooks it. I climbed this before sunset (accompanied all the way to the top by a black Labrador), and from the top the views over the lake, the shoreline and the town were amazing. You could see clearly why Rio decided to name its beach after here, as the shape of the coastline is remarkably similar.
The following day it was time to head to the Isla del Sol. Even though it is very close to Copacabana, the ancient boat took 2 hours to get to the town of Challapampa at the far end of the island (the water was very, very choppy!). From the island, you can appreciate how big the lake is. It’s by far in a way the largest high-altitude
body of water in the world (nearly 4000m above sea level), the largest lake in South America, and is 15 times the size of Lake Geneva. As it is so high, the dark blue waters and the sky seem to merge as one - it really was beautiful. Most of the interesting sites on the island are located near Challapampa; these included the ruins at Chinkana, an Inca Altar where sacrifices used to occur, as well as a rock which apparently resembles a Puma, and actually gives its name to the Lake (Titi Karka meaning Rock of the Puma). None of the ruins were that amazing, but the walk along the spine of the island, from the north to the far south, was breathtaking, with spectacular views not only of the lake, but also of the Cordillera Real mountains in the background. I was originally going to spend a night on the island, but as I reached Yumani, in the far south of the island, by mid afternoon, I didn’t quite see the point. So I headed back to Copacabana and got ready to cross into Peru (Puno) the following day.
As both Copacabana and Puno are major stops
on the backpacker trail, the border crossing was relatively straight forward, with only a minor hold in the Peruvian Immigration Office. As Peru is one hour further behind Bolivia, it only took 2 and a half hours to get from one city to another. Puno is the largest Peruvian settlement on Lake Titicaca, and although a lot of people miss it out, heading straight for Cusco or Arequipa, I wanted to visit some of the islands on the Peruvian side. In true Peruvian over-touristy fashion, as soon as I got off the bus at Puno Terminal, I was touted by different hostel owners, which was at the same time annoying but useful. Once in the city, I booked a tour for the following day for the Uros Floating Islands and the island of Taquile, leaving me the rest of the afternoon to explore Puno. The city is quite industrial, though the port area has been redeveloped recently and is very touristy. The only highlight in the city itself was the hill a few blocks behind the main square, from where sunset over the city and the lake was quite beautiful (but not as beautiful as in Copacabana).
The following
morning I got picked up from my hostel at 6:45am for the tour. After being driven to the port, we were taken onboard a modern boat (much nicer than the ones on the Bolivian side of the lake) and started to make our way to the Uros Floating Islands. These islands are the strangest I’m ever likely to visit. Completely artificial, they are made entirely of reeds, which have to be constantly replaced as they rot so quickly, and anchored to the bed of Puno Bay. The Uros Indians started building these islands as they were forced out of their homes on the mainland centuries ago; these days most of the islands only exist to cater for tourists. For this reason, all of the locals were really friendly, explaining how the islands are made, how often they need to be rebuilt etc, before showing us around their homes, but of course they predominantly want to sell us as many of their handicrafts as possible. There are 60 or so islands, with one containing a school and a medical centre, but nearly everyone who isn’t involved in the tourist trade has moved back to the mainland. There are a few traditional
islands which tourists do not visit - here the locals live nearly entirely on fish from the lake and the reeds themselves.
After a couple of hours on 2 different islands, our tour continued to the natural island of Taquile, 2 and ½ hours away in the centre of the lake. I was a bit disappointed both with the tour and the island itself - we only had a short time on Taquile, but we spent half of our time in a rather expensive and poor quality restaurant. The short walk we did was spectacular, with stunning views of the lake, the nearby island of Amantini and of the mainland. The main square in the only proper town on the island was much more touristy than I had thought - I can’t say I really liked it. What I did like was hearing about Taquile culture, for example local men wear a red hat if they are married or a red and white hat if they are single (the women have different colour pompoms). Divorce is not allowed - marriage is always “until death do us part”, though annulment is permitted during a “trial period” of 4 years. There
is no crime on the island despite their being no police, no dogs and no locks on any doors. So it was definitely an interesting place; in hindsight I would have preferred to have gone to the neighbouring island of Amantini which is considerably less touristy.
After we arrived back in Cusco at around 5pm, I had a night bus to Cusco to catch. The next blog will come from there.
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