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Published: December 8th 2008
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We had only hoped that we would have either enough time or be in the right area to visit Lake Titicaca, try and say that after a couple of Pisco Sours, it will get your tongue in a right twist. The whole idea of visiting the lake was to coincide with our original route towards Cusco. Lake Titicaca is famed as being the highest navigable lake in the world, without sounding all David Attenborough, it also has great heritage for a group of native Peruvians who live on reed islands. There are many points on this mass of water that you can get a craft to take you out to one of these communities but we chose the easiest and most accessible, Puno.
This was only surpased by the fact that our bus had broken down outside La Paz and we had driven around the backstreets for the initial three hours of our journey. The bus trip seemed to drag on slightly, it involved crossing the Bolivian/Peruvian border at Desaguardo. A wild west type of town that housed a myriad of money changers, broken cart repairers and more ramshackled housing that you could shake a Duncan Smith development plan
at. The whole town was alive, perhaps it was market day or maybe this was the way it runs normally. As with all border crossings there is a piece of land that separates the two countries, usually defined as no mans land. This bit of land always contains the security for each country and you must exit your bus and walk across. Well as we are still 8 inches taller than the nearest local and our current attire is slightly different from the norm then we usually stand out. It was no surprise that the customs offical took us aside and asked for ur passport, we had been warned about the border guards so the senses were set at superhero level. However as Em and I have the superheros names of Deaf, Dumb and Blind man we pretty much went along with these guys into a office just off the road. Unfortunately as we were walking alongside a couple of aussie guys the guards hauled all of us in together. It was a little nerver racking, Em was called into an office by herself and we were made to wait outside. It turned out not to be anything serious, with
them just looking at our passport/money and contents of our pockets. Em was not carrying anything but I surprised the gentleman with a couple of soiled tissues and a locally flavoured lollipop (Howard Marx we are not).
Safely across we skipped merrily along the road until we had the lake in our sights and we had landed at Puno. A short taxi ride revealed our hostel for the night called. It was great with the hosts being more than attentive. We had a couple of dutch people as our roomies and as they had just completed the Inca trek we quizzed them on every need, whim or piece of equipment that would be needed. They were very patient as most nights we watched TV ( on loudly) and did not realise that they were in bed in the room next door with paper thin walls. Puno is a confusing town, it contains many traditional aspects of culture that has eons of history. But then as you would expect it has one main street that has more tourist restaurants, shops and old ladies selling llama paraphernalia. We got accustomed to the place in the evening and chilled out after some
Chifa, that is Peruvian chinese food.
We had decided to sort out our exit on the first day and book the bus tickets for our trip to Cusco. With all of that done it was generally a walk around town and some quiet time for the rest of the day. However we had decided to take a trip out to the lake the next afternoon. The hostel arranged it for us, they must have had a chat with the big man upstairs as the sun was shining high in the sky when we left the dock around mid afternoon.
Now as I was not aware until I turned up at this place but a group of local people actually live on reed islands permantly. They are situated about 2km into the water and are built of the reed roots covered by layers of reeds. It is amazing that it is strong enough to hold all of the people and their houses but it really does. They even have livestock on there, some houses with Sky TV (the ladies are mad for the soaps) and whole hotels. The highlight of the trip being the description of their approach to
divorce, if you no longer get on with your loved one then you just take a saw and make a cut down the middle of the island and float off into eternity.
The local people made us feel ever so welcome and our colleagues from around the group followed suit with some really nice people from NZ sharing the experience with a fun approach. This was highlighted when the children of the village sang for us, they sang twinkle Twinkle little star but did it in seven languages. The English version contained alternative chorus with Twinkle replaced with Gringo, it made a for a welcome retort from the little guys.
The rest of our time in Puno was spent preparing for the bus trip over to Cusco. Leaving the place brought a review of memories, it is defintely somthing to go and see. The people are really friendly if not a little prepared for the tourist dollar. Just for the songs, go and take the trip.
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