Lake Titikaka - floating islands and the birthplace of the Incas

---

---

Lake Titicaca is (and here comes another superlative) the highest commercially navigable lake in the world at over 3800m. It is also mentioned as one of the highlights of Peru in my guidebook. What they don’t mention that it’s also a freaking cold place and not that interesting. Did I mention that I disagree with my guidebook?

Ok it’s not such a bad place as it might have some attraction to some but let's start from the beginning.
I arrived in Puno after a nice 8 hour bus ride from Cusco. You really have to say that some South American countries have the bus system figured out. There are busses going left right and centre all the time and you can go from cheap cattle class (speak no leg room, dirty and slow) to super luxury which includes fully reclining bed-seats, an air-conditioning which isn’t on full blast all the time, toilets (for peeing only!), videos and a stewardess (which sometimes servers food but apart from that has no apparent reason to me).

Coming back to Puno. The only reason (and I mean that) to stay in Puno is to leave it again on board of a boat. Puno is the port to visit the reed islands of Uros. There are also some other islands you can visit but they are further from Puno and I didn’t bother. The reed islands are quite interesting as they, as the name suggests, are solely made out of reed and float. Today there are about 40 of such islands and 3000 people live on them. The Uros created these islands to avoid conflict with other tribes (including the Incas) and started doing this over 600 years ago. The islands are, depending on their age, somewhere between 3 and 17 meter deep and need constant maintenance in form of a fresh reed layer every couple of weeks. Normally the islands have reed buildings on top (basically everything is made out of reed) and the reed is even used as a food source. Some of the bigger islands have “proper” buildings which include a post office and a school and one island has (rumour has it) a telephone (bloody modern times where will it stop I ask?). Anyway the beauty about these reed islands is that if you have a proper disagreement with another family on the island then you can saw off your bit of the island and start a new one. How good is that? I bet if you could do that in Australia or Europe we would have a myriad of small islands 😉 Today the islands are very touristy but because they are unique they are also interesting.

After seeing the islands I hopped on another bus to cross into Bolivia (my last new country in SA and only a bit more than one month to go here 😞
The border crossing is a bit dodgy but luckily Pelin warned me about it. When I arrived at the border two eager border policemen took me into their office and insist that they have to check my luggage for drugs (why would you smuggle drugs into Bolivia??) and fake money. Well you can’t say no to border policemen but you can be watchful. The suspicion that they are more interested in long term lending (a.k.a. stealing) money from unsuspecting tourists is hardened by the fact that they only checked one small compartment of my huge backpack (the rest they didn’t even ask to see). On the other hand they were very keen to check my small backpack, the contents of all my pockets and my money belt for drugs (the most common place for drugs obviously). As I said I was warned and watched their fingers very carefully which they realized too. They played a bit hurt “I’m just doing my job” policeman but I can live with that. I heard that if you cross the border with a tourist bus then they do not want to see one piece of luggage from the whole bus…
The Bolivian side didn’t even want to see my luggage and just put a new stamp into my passport.

Happy to be in Bolivia I went to Copacabana which has nothing to do with the famous beach in Rio. There are no cute bums in string tangas nor was there a beach. It’s way to cold (ice on the roads in the morning cold) for it anyway. As it was late I just checked into the closest hotel mentioned in my guidebook. I knew that Bolivia is cheap but 10 Bolivians (USD 1.2) for a hotel room I didn’t expect.
The reason to come to Copacabana is to visit the Isla del Sol and Isla de la Luna. Isla del Sol is, regarding to some legends, not only the birthplace of the sun but also the birthplace of the first Incas Manco Capac and his sister Mama Ocllo. Both apparently came out of a (to me normal looking) sacred rock at the northern end of the island. After they came out of the rock they headed of to Cusco. I don’t blame them that they left as this is a dry, bloody cold and small island. Good decision I say. Today you can marvel at the sacred rock, some mainly uninteresting ruin, a couple of museums and a sacrifice rock. And all that after only 2.5 hours walking over the ridge of the island where a constant cold wind blows which gives you (in my case at least) a cold which will last for 10 days. Oh did I mention that you have to walk back in the end.


Did you know: Despite being landlocked, Bolivia still has a navy. Its main base can be found on the shores of Lake Titicaca. They lost the last sea port in 1884 to Chile and they are still not over it.
And I thought only girlfriends never forget 😉

Next stop La Paz

This is where Bolivia is

---

Photos

A boat completely made out of reed.
It can be used for several months before it starts to rot

Some of the ruins on Isla del Sol
The layout is like a maze

KFC´s Colonel Sander´s was Bolivian
And here is the proof