High Lakes and Dodgy Borders
Trip Start
Oct 13, 2007
1
4
14
Trip End
Jan 10, 2008
La Paz,
Bolivia
Saturday, October 27, 2007
After returning from Machu Picchu, we headed to Puno, on the edge of Lake Titicaca, whence we boarded a boat to explore some of the islands on the ´highest navigable lake in the world´ (3800m).
Unfortunately the driver of the boat had seen the ill-fated sequel to Speed far too many times, and it took us almost 4 hours to get to the first port of call, Taquile Island. Here,
everyone spoke Quechuan as their first language, some of which we learned on the way.
The whole area in many ways resembled the Greek Islands: The stunning sun tinted lake and sparsely vegetated islands, and with introduced aussie gum trees and the borrowed vegemite i consumed that morning, a strange feeling of deja vu mixed with nationalisim was rising inside me, a sort of flora based colonialist pride.
One defining feature of Taquile Island is that all the men knit, and there is quite a distinctive culture within each of the different islands, the one constant being the generous tax free status and other gifts (solar panels to power tv´s, radios and lights) laden upon all the islands by former president AlbertoFujimori, who has just been extradited from Chile to answer charges of corruption. For some reason they still love him....
Next stop was Amantani Island, where we were greeted at the port by a line of women looking exactly the same in their traditional dress: Our mama´s, who would be looking after us for the night.
Our group was then split up as each mama led us away in pairs up a considerable (and unwelcome) mountain to their respective houses where we would be staying for the night.
I was with Anthony and our room was actually quite nice, clearly the island has developed exponetially since tourists have begun staying for what I would describe as a very unusual B&B experience.
After settling in, we headed to the concrete soccer field, where I started to play a game with some others from other groups and some locals. Unfortunately, I became a little too involved and ended up playing what became a rather frenetic match for an hour with no break. This showed up my poor fitness levels, particularly when played at 4000m above sea level, and I was stuffed for the rest of the night! However we did win, thanks to some quality skills from Danny and Ivan, two brits who were very good value for the whole tour.
The evening consisted of a dinner in a more humble dining area than the bedrooms, mud hut being perhaps the best description, with most of the family of grandma, madre, padre, and 4 kids sitting just above the uncovered floor and very basic food being prepared (think lots of potato and vegies) but still very tasty.
As a ´tip´ for the family we brought some useful food: oil, tuna, rice, milk, which is difficult to get without a long trip to Puno. I also offloaded 2 bags of Coca leaves i had been carrying around since the Lares Trek. (Interesting story surrounding Coca leaves which I won´t get into here: involves Coke, USA´s war on Drugs etc. Look it up!)
After dinner, we were summarily dressed in traditional costume (far more arduous for the girls) and led to a party where with local traditional band and drinks (which I avoided given I was still puffing 3 hours later), Mama grabbed our hands and started dancing with us.
The mama assigned to Danny and Ivan was one of funniest people I have ever met: a older lady with sparse population of teeth, she was drinking beer for beer with Danny and Ivan and was dancing erratically with them, much to their delight.
Alas, the night had to end but I was awoken not much later by the rising sun shining upon my face where i was sleeping. The door to our room opened to a spectacular view of Lake Titicaca lit by a piercing sun reflecting up to the top of the island.
From Amantani, we said yusparagasunki (Goodbye in Quechuan for those specialising in ancient Incan languages), and began the long ride back towards land. The driver must have watched Speed II: Cruise Control a few more times since the first day, so it took another 3.5 hours to reach the Uros Islands.
The Uros Islands are an incredible collection of hundreds of man-made islands made of reeds and providing homes to 2000 people, who have lived there for over 1000 years.
All the houses were also made of reeds, and the islands themselves need to be constantly rebuilt to countrer rising waters and natural decay. A truly bizarre experience.
We then finally returned to the mainland and a substantial night out to celebrate, as many of the group were returning to Lima the next day, while the rest of us headed to Bolivia.
Unfortunately, we were unable to cross the border in the usual place as hundreds of locals were protesting with substantial rocks about the construction of a road bypassing many towns who make their living from drive-through tourism.
So began an interesting detour, where we used highly confusing public transport and crossed the border at Copacobana. This consisted of a few offices we were shunted through, one of which was supposed to be police, but seemed to be a few guys in normal clothes with a computer laughing at passport photos.
Nevertheless, we made it into Bolivia, and from Copacobana, we caught another bus to another port, where everyone got off, clutching our valuables, as we saw our bus then drive precariously onto a dodgy, dodgy raft-like platform, which floated over to the other side of Lake Titikaka. Somehow, it made it to the other side, as we did in an equally dodgy refugee boat. It was rather ironic that this dodgy refugee boat was full of rich foreigners trying to get into another country. A bridge of course would have solved this issue, but as I will no doubt mention later, Bolivia is not the richest of countries and such civil engineering projects seem a pipe dream.
Eventually, we made it to La Paz, driving through a bland looking outer city called El Alto (work it out) before a quick change of direction and turn revealed a stunning landscape, a large city filling a massive crater like valley with snow capped 6500m high mountain ranges in the background. If only the roads weren´t so bumpy, I may have been able to capture this incredible picture on some kind of electronic picture capturing device.
Can you tell I´ve been typing too long?
