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Published: December 4th 2005
Along Lake Titicaca
This picture was taken on the way to the Isla Flotantes. Obviously the water is very shallow at this portion of the lake. It wasn´t until we drove around a portion of the lake on our way to La Paz that I realized just how enormous Lake Titicaca is.November 26, 2005 (Puno, Peru)
Sean: After visiting Machu Picchu we spent the day wandering around Aguas Calientes, just bumming around after our long day trekking up and down the stone steps and alleyways (the Incas must’ve had great leg muscles). Even with our previous night’s refreshing slumber, we didn’t dally about until the wee hours and went straight to bed. The next day it was up early and out the door to catch the train and head back to Cuzco. After a fairly uneventful 2 hour train ride we managed to catch a cheap ride for the final two hour leg into Cuzco.
Side note: Today was Thanksgiving and in keeping with tradition and the spirit of the pilgrims, I ate grilled Alpaca. It was quite delicious. It tastes like a very lean beef, but it wasn’t gamey or tough. I highly recommend it.
For the short time we were in Cuzco previously we didn’t get a chance to do much, so this time we were looking forward to browsing the vast markets and checking out some of the colonial architecture. However we didn’t realize how commercialized and packaged the town was. Tourism in this town is
Grilled Alpaca
Yummy... and it tastes nothing like chicken. king and all manner of people come here as it’s the throughput for one of the world’s major attractions. This could make you feel jaded as everyone wants you to buy something. From the post card sellers, to the tour sellers, to restaurant touts, to hostel hustlers, it is difficult to walk five feet without someone pushing something in your face. After paying what westerners pay for Machu Picchu (which isn’t exorbitant, but it is fairly steep even by American standards. Peru is an inexpensive country but they’ve learned very well that the market will bear much higher rates for all the touristy things) you almost feel as if you’ve spent enough in this area of the world. So it gets a little old telling the 12 year old shoe shine boy or finger puppet seller that you don’t want any of their wares. But to them, after awhile, you just feel like a mark or a fat wallet. Another sticking point is that all of the Llama and Alpaca fur clothing, while it’s touted as superior material and is sold ubiquitously, isn’t visibly worn by any Peruvians. They’re all wearing cotton and wool. It’s another expensive, native item that
Isla Flotantes
We took this picture from the lookout tower - each island that we visited had one. Built for tourism? We´re not sure. they’ve marketed exclusively for the foreign visitor.
Needless to say, we didn’t spend much time here again and left out the next morning. This time we were on another bed bus (with a different company) for the short 6 hour ride to Puno and it was much more comfortable. I wished we would’ve had this bus for that last long slog.
Shannon: As our bus neared Puno I could see out the window that we were probably going to be in for some bad weather - ominous clouds were definitely gathering. As soon as we reached the outskirts of town, the heavens opened with a mighty display of hail. It reminded me of when Sean and I lived in Colorado, a place where it hailed fairly frequently. The one we experienced in Puno was fairly impressive. The hail covered the streets in a thin film of white and pelted the bus pretty soundly. Luckily for us, it was mostly done by the time the bus unloaded at the station.
Sean: Puno is the major city (in Peru) on Lake Titicaca. It’s really just a big lake until you realize that you’re 12,000 feet above sea level. This
Catamaran
Made entirely of reeds, a little wood and bundled together with some sort of string... makes it the highest navigable waterway in the world. The biggest attractions on the lake are the Isla Flotantes. These are a series of “islands” made by the indigenous peoples (The Uros) when the Spaniards came in. Not wanting to be assimilated, they built their own floating islands out of reeds to live on far away from the marauding invaders. It worked, but now they’re inundated daily with tourists wishing to see these highly interesting structures. When you step off the boat coming onto one of the islands you can feel the reeds give way a bit. In some parts where the reeds are thinner, your foot sinks quite surprisingly.
Shannon: We’ve heard that some of these “communities” exist solely for the tourist trade, although we’ve also heard that there are still some authentic islands further off the tourist track. Whether the ones that we visited were authentic or not, I can’t say. It’s a pretty simple existence at any rate. We visited 3 of these islands and at each one they had simple tables set up for tourists to buy their wares. I’m not sure if it is enough for them to make a living, though with the
Peruvian Load Line
Don´t be fooled by the letters. That´s not the Peruvian Classification Agency, they´re the Captain´s initials. throngs of people that were there with us, I imagine they could do quite well. The Peruvian government installed solar panels on the islands to help their “infrastructure”, but most of the islands were pretty sparse. On the typical island you would find a small garden, a “pond” (really just an opening in the reeds), a handful of chickens and a few houses. And not much else. I’m not sure how much upkeep the islands take, though the guidebook says that they keep replenishing the reeds on top as the ones on the bottom rot away. It was pretty interesting. The Uros are also known for their high-quality reed boats. Some of them are simple canoes, while others were more elaborate.
Sean: After the islands we then went to what I would consider one of the neatest attractions in the area. In 1861 the Peruvian government, wishing to have naval superiority on Lake Titicaca, contracted with an English shipyard for two 100 foot steel gunboats, each to be constructed in pieces with each piece not exceeding 4 tons in weight - 2,766 pieces for each ship. All of these parts were crated and shipped around the Cape, offloaded on
Puno Tricycle Taxi
This thing only had one gear! the coast and brought by train and mule (mostly mule) to the lake. The trip by land across the Andes, while only 220 miles as the crow flies, took six years to complete! (Note from
Shannon: 30 of those miles were by train to the city of Tacna (elevation 1,000 feet) - the remaining 190 miles was done with mules. The route required passing over the Andes at an elevation of 15,500 feet before descending into Puno at elevation 12,500 feet. Sean and I both feel a little winded just walking uphill at this elevation, so I can’t imagine the poor mules and men that it took to haul 4-ton pieces of ships to this elevation!) The re-construction of this vessel (the MN Yavari) then took another 3 years, finally launching on Christmas day 1870. I am impressed that the government went to all that trouble to rule a lake that is situated in a fairly desolate and unpopulated region bordering a neighbor (Bolivia) whom they have fairly good relations. The sister ship is still in operation with the government but the Yavari was left to rust until about 20 years ago when an English lady bought and refurbished her.
Definitely not in Kansas
In true Peruvian style, we even had a tout approach us wanting to ¨show¨ us the way across the border. Hmmmm... I think we go over there where it says ¨Welcome to Bolivia¨! It is really a cool piece of history that has been restored to almost perfection. Interesting to note that the four cylinder diesel engine currently in successful operation replaced the original llama dung fueled one in 1914. Much like our trip to the bullfighting museum, we had our own tour guide and were probably the only people who’d come here all week. Our tour guide was a very knowledgeable deck hand that, while not able to speak much conversational English, had many of our nautical terms down pat. She even called out the Captain, and I translated a few more terms that they weren’t sure of. In the future they plan on putting some cabins in her and taking tourists on three day excursions. I’d love to come back for that. As a side note I hope you all truly feel sorry for my beautiful esposita who not only had to sit through another tour in Spanish but was subjected to the dry nautical history of a third world nation. Even translated, I could tell she tried her best to seem interested. That’s a great wife.
Shannon: Puno is a fairly large city on Lake Titicaca - not as
The Bolivian Andes
Remember, we are taking this picture from roughly 12,000 feet - and then to see these mountains rising up in the distance is amazing. When we flew out of La Paz, we passed within a mile of one of these mountains. It took your breath away. large as Cuzco, but still fairly big. Sean and I needed to buy bus tickets for our onward trip to La Paz, so we decided to take a taxi back to the bus station. After stepping outside the hostel doors, we became the subject of a friendly rivalry between some “tricycle taxi” drivers. The winner of our business, a very affable Peruvian, had us hop onto the bench seat of the partially covered taxi as he pedaled from behind. And off we went. This guy was no slouch - he could get us moving pretty quickly. And he was an expert at maneuvering the taxi to avoid puddles and ruts in the road. As we sped along, Sean and I marveled at the other tricycle taxi drivers as well. One of them was carrying a woman and about 8 huge sacks that looked like they contained grain of some sort - they were bulging out the sides of the taxi and it looked like she was being crushed under the weight of all that grain. Think of the poor taxi driver - at 12,500 feet in elevation, Puno certainly isn’t the easiest city to have this job. I’m sure these
Boats...old vs. new
The boat in the foreground took us out to the islands. It had problems, let me tell you. It is no exaggeration to say that at one point we got passed up by a woman in a rowboat - and she had passengers! guys have lungs and legs of steel. Our taxi driver ended up waiting for us at the bus station, then taking us to the docks to catch the boat to the Isla Flotantes. All this for 6 Peruvian Soles - about $1.80!
November 28, 2005 (La Paz, Bolivia)
Shannon: We’ve officially left Peru, having crossed into Bolivia yesterday headed to La Paz. I have mixed feelings about our time in Peru. To be fair, we had already bought our onward tickets to Buenos Aires before we arrived in Peru (following the entry requirements). But once we got there, we realized that we had not budgeted
nearly enough time to see the country properly. Because of this, we ended up doing a whirlwind tour, trying to see as much as we could in two weeks. And we stayed pretty firmly on the tourist trail. As a result, we paid a lot more than we normally would (constantly being on the move is a huge budget killer) and we didn’t have any time to really get to know any one place. So I wouldn’t really say that we saw Peru - we saw Tourist Peru. And by staying on
1914 Bolinder Diesel
Volvo eventually bought Bolinder and this engine is the only one like it still in operation. the tourist path, we spent a lot of time with touts accosting us. Sean and I both know that our experience in Peru would have been so much better had we had more time to enjoy it and stretch our legs a bit. Not that we didn’t enjoy it - Peru has some spectacular scenery and amazing sights to see. But overall the trip just felt rushed. If I had to do it over, I would probably budget two more weeks for the trip and spend more time in the smaller towns in the Andes, visit Arequipa (which we didn’t have time for) and visit some towns in the Amazon basin. Next time…
We are staying in La Paz, Bolivia until tomorrow, when we will fly to Buenos Aires. Again, I wished I had known to budget more time for La Paz. I wasn’t expecting much and so far it has vastly exceeded my expectations. La Paz is set in a gigantic bowl, with the city sprawling up the sides of the hills that surround it. At 11,900 ft elevation, it is the highest capitol city in the world. Off in the distance you see snow-capped mountains, the weather
is a perfect 75 degrees in the middle of the day (though it certainly gets chilly at night), and the city has a lot to offer. We barely scratched the surface of this city, but what we have seen shows a lot of promise. La Paz has a sort of European ambiance to it - at least where we are staying - with nice cafes and little shops. And it truly is a bargain. Any place where you can get a great cappuccino for less than a buck and a big cup of ice cream for $0.50 is a place we would love to spend time in. (
Sean: Those cappuccinos were really good…and so cheap).
Sean: Today we went to the Coca museum. The native Andean cultures still use the leaves to chew and make tea (we’ve had numerous cups) and traditionally it’s been used to counteract the affects of altitude sickness and it is nourishing. The problems, of course, come when you mix it with kerosene and other highly noxious chemicals to turn it into a white powder. From the text, it was easy to sense the disappointment felt by the Andean peoples over their sacred plant being
Dried Alpaca Fetuses and Baby Llamas
They also had dried turtles, armadillos, various (unidentified) rodents and some curiously puffed up frogs with gold beads for eyes which had been sprinkled with glitter. If that doesn´t say Christmas, I don´t know what does... so heavily derided the world over. Overall it was a fine little informative museum.
Shannon: After visiting the Coca Museum, Sean and I strolled through some of the streets in the near vicinity. There were lots of shops selling all sorts of souvenirs and such. But we just couldn’t decide - who should we get the dried alpaca fetus and/or the dead baby llama for? Wouldn’t it cause a commotion if we didn’t get one for everyone? So rather than have everyone fight, we just took a picture. Enjoy…
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Steve Caslowitz
non-member comment
Thanks!
Wow! I'm thoroughly enjoying your blog! Thanks for keeping us updated, I wish I could visit such places. Hope your travels continue to be great experiences. Take Care, Steve