Puno, Copacobana, Lake Titicaca and the Border Crossing

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Alright, another long pause between updates, lots of bussing and business...

The day after we arrived back from the Inca Trail we had an early bus to catch at 7am in order to get to Puno on Lake Titicaca. After a rather dull ´tour´from Cusco to Puno, stopping 4-5 places with some information we arrived in Puno at 5pm and went to our hostel. After dropping off bags and arranging our next bus we explored the city a bit, had street food for dinner and went to bed.

The next day in Puno we went on a day boat tour to the Uros or floating islands and Taquile Island, the floating islands were fairly interesting, although now extremely commercial. The inhabitants of the islands showed you how the floating islands were made of the reed Tortuga, which becomes detached from the bottom of the lake and floats dirt and all. They also showed us how the homes were built, the foods they ate and of course what lovely souveniers you could buy from the people. Not only that we were sucked into a boat ride for 10 soles...a little annoying but interesting. Apparently if there are fueds on an island they simple cut that part of the island off to creat a new one. There are about 50 floating islands to this day. They are anchored to the bottom of the lake with ropes, but can float around if they need to be moved.

After Uros we headed on an incredibly long boat ride to Taquile island which was inhabited by the Incas and other natives. Although the island itself was beautiful, it was again a tourist trap. We ended up getting escorted to a restaurant for lunch, and were told we had no choice but to pay and eat the set menu as they tried to fairly distribute the tourists to the restaurants on the island. After an expensive lunch we walked to the top of the island and back down...unfortunately uneventful. We wished we would have skipped that part of the tour or at least been able to explore on our own.

That night back in puno we met up again with our friends from the Inca Trail, Adrian and Kate and had a beer with them. Another bite of street food and off to bed as our bus to copacobana left at 7am.

The next day we bussed to Copacabana which took about 3 hours, a lot of time spent at the Bolivian border crossing. Elliot unfortunately misplaced or never recieved the end slip of his peruvian imigration slip, therefore causing us to have to get multiple photocopies of his passport, pay 40 Bolivianos and walk multiple times between the Peruvian inmigration offices...a bit stressful but we made it to Bolivia.

After arriving in Copa around 1pm we found a hostel, dropped our bags off and went on a few hikes. After wandering the city we climbed to the hill with the cemetary (great look out), followed by another hike uphill to an old incan quarry. After a long day of bus trips, walking, a bit of shopping and eating we found a local stall for dinner with trout, potatoes, salad, rice and papas rellenas, eating like kings we spent a measley $4.50.

The next morning we stored our bags and headed to the lake for a boat transfer to the Isle del Sol. The island was beautiful, and a perfect backpacker hangout with a beach for camping, stalls with food and beer and some interesting walks. We did a few hour hike to Incan sites and then boated down to the south part of the island to check out some Incan water ways and have a beer. Back to town by 5pm just in time to grab a bite to eat, our bags and jump on the bus to La Paz.

Although getting the bus to La Paz was a hassle, and we left an hour late, we managed a river crossing in the dark. In La Paz we jumped in a taxi to our hostel and bunked down for the night.

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Comments

[Peter Garlick]

Hi Kate and Elliot, Your travels are making interesting reading. The challenges of traveling make very different reading compared to tourist information. Shame to read about the tourist trap mentality in some places. I hope the next bit goes well. Love Peter and Gabrielle.