Lake Titicaca

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PHOTOS ADDED!!! After a night lay-over in Lima, I flew via Cuzco to Juliaca and then took a bus to Puno on Lake Titicaca. I arrived at my hostel (Don Julio - much recommended) where a note was awaiting me.

Lizzy and her sister Erica, who is here until Thursday, already had a room all good to go. It was great seeing them, especially because Erica has exactly the same laugh as Lizzy, so I got it in surround sound.

We had a pretty average dinner on Calle Lima, one of the main tourist streets, and after a brief game of cards (called Casino, I think Lizzy made it up, but I still won😉 we all crashed.

Now onto the good stuff. We woke up early and headed to the Lake. The Lake is absolutely huge, so it´s not possible to even see half of the sights from Puno, you have to go either to Tequile, or Copacabana in Bolivia. So we were taken to the Islas Uros, which was an absolutely unique experience.

These people live in the middle of the Lake on man-made floating islands made of reeds. When you get off the boats, you are surprised because you half sink into the ground, as the individual reeds aren´t very sturdy, although the overall structure is pretty strong. The islands are made from a thick layer of root sediment (the stuff that the reeds grow from) and then layers of tightly compacted reeds on top. They last for 25 years.

It´s incredible to think that people lived and survived like this before the tourists all came. Sustaining themselves must have been a real challenge. Now, however, it´s a different story as it´s a giant tourist exhibit. The islanders all sell tourist knick-knacks and charge you to take rides on their boats (which, of course, are made out of reeds). Actually, this latter activity was really relaxing because the boats were really comfortable to lie on as you were silently rowed from one island to the next by the locals.

The second island we landed on was quite bizarre, because there was a wedding which supposedly was taking place. Depending on who you spoke to, these weddings either take place very rarely, only in August, or every day with the same couple getting married over and over again. It was weird, because there seemed to be a lot of the Uros people there, and the kids were all loading up on soda (hard to imagine that the parents would let them do this every day) but the authenticity of the event was questionable for several reasons. First, there were giant loud speakers which seemed purpose built for the island (no idea where the electricity came from). Second, the wedding presents were, well, surprising. One of the gifts was a DVD player. Again, there´s no electricity out there, so not sure what the happy couple would do with them (our tour guide said that they had a black and white TV, but that they would only get one hour of electricity from the solar panels they had). Third, if you were having a wedding, would you invite a bunch of gringo tourists?

Despite all this, though, it was still an incredible experience, probably one of a kind. It was extremely beautiful out in the middle of the lake, and it´s mind boggling just how big it is. I´m going to try to get photos up at some point.

For lunch, we went to a little hidden gem of a cevicheria (restaurant that serves raw fish cooked in lemon or lime juice). For anyone coming here, it´s defintely worth the visit because it was cheap and excellent. It´s called Fina Estampa on the street Jr. Punto.

This afternoon we´re off to Cuzco to hit up Macchu Pichu. I will try to get photos online when i´m at a less complicated internet cafe.

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