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  Puno, Peru
Monday, July 30, 2007

After bombing down Death Road, threatening at every hands turn to explode off the side of a mountain, anywhere we landed was bound to be a shade underwhelming. And so Coroico turned out to be.

Don't get me wrong, the town is beautiful and the scenery amazing - sweeping valleys and mountain passes with snow capped mountain ranges away on yonder horizon. It's just that its a sleepy little spot, with a speedometer that rarely gets above 'doze', and as such was the perfect refuge for two tightly-clenched mountain-bikers-in-the-making. AND it had another thing going for it that I would never have appreciated before coming to Bolivia...Oxygen. Oh, those lovely O2 molecules filling my senses and my over-corpuscled arteries. Coroico sits at around 1200m above sea level, so we were around 3km lower than we had been for the previous few weeks. I felt like a sherpa, breathing deeply in the morning, exhaling in the afternoon and weighing up the pros and cons of a second breath some time after dinner.

We wandered around the town for a few days, taking a few long walks off to see local waterfalls and watering holes, and after a few days of deep breathing, returned to the smoggy heights of LaPaz for 'one night only'. Apart from using LaPaz as a jump off point for an onward bus, the real reason we came back was to pick up my PosteRestante parcel from home. My ever-loving sister had sent me over a few books, and as a surprise had 'padded' the box with a few packs of Tayto, a bunch of Lyons tea bags and - wonder of wonders - a selection of Cadburys chocolate. Talk about Manna from heaven. Marge and I wolfed a bar of fruit and nut outside the post office, and after much discussion figured out that the best place to eat crisps would be at the movies. So, not put off by the fact that the only show in town was 'Transformers' (in bloody Spanish), we bought two tickets, sat in the dark and munched our way through a few bars of Dairy Milk and a bag or two of Cheese and Onion crisps. I can honestly say I have seldom enjoyed a movie more.

Suitably oxygenated and fattened, the next day we took a 4 hour trip up to Copacabana, a small town sitting on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca. The bus was a hoot...as we tootled along we got to a certain point where everyone had to get out of the bus, get in a small motor boat and head over to the other side of an inlet, while the bus was stuck onto a floating barge and tootled across after us. Copacabana itself was lovely, a little seaside town sporting the only beach in Bolivia. And lest I forget, its also the main centre for the Bolivian 'Navy'. Now given that Bolivia doesn't actually have a coastline, and the Navy just pootles around this big bloody lake, you'll understand it when I say that I finally found a country whose Navy makes the Irish one look good.

Anyway, Copacabana is neither figuratively nor literally the 'hottest spot north of Havana', but it does serve as a jump off point to the Isla del Sol, a magnificent island in the middle of the lake that's choc full of Incan ruins. Apparently its where the Incans believed the sun was born, and humnble pilgrims that we are, Marge and I took a ferry over there early one morning and walked from the Northern tip to the Southern port, where we took a ferry back again to the mainland in the evening. It was great - a good 5 hour hike with a few stops to check out Incan temples, labyrinths and houses...and to eat a little picnic looking onto the bluer-than-blue-jim-mcblue waters of Lake Titicaca...

Lest you think we were Titicaca-d out, we then crossed the border into Peru to the town of Puno. It also sits right on the Lake, but because its on the Peruvian side, you can access a few different islands. We took one full day trip out to the floating reed islands and to a small spot called Isla Taquile. The reed islands were very bizarre... thousands of people living on these floating raft-like islands that they make from reeds growing on the lake. Its all a bit touristy, but its interesting to see and to wander through their little town, being shuttled from island to island on a woven reed boat.

The most interesting thing though was going to the island of Taquile, right out in the middle of the lake. It took about 3 hours to reach it by ferry, but boy did we arrive at the right time. The islanders had kicked off their annual festival the day before we arrived, and on the afternoon we were there the party was in full swing. Everyone was decked out in traditional garb, singing and dancing around the small town square. It was fantastic, and for the first time since we arrived in South America, we felt like we were seeing a real bit of indigineous culture - rather than one just put on for the sake of gringo tourists.

Oh, and a nice bit of Titicaca trout for lunch didnt hurt either....

BTW - photos are available for viewing and purchase at http://picasaweb.google.com/richard.mcguinness/LakeTiticacal icious

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