Everything Has its Quid

Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Copacabana, La Paz, Bolivia
We made our way to the Lago Titicaca region last Thursday, arriving in Puno from Arequipa, a pleasant enough 6 hour bus ride across the Peruvian Altiplano. The Altiplano is a very extensive area of high plateau lying in the central Andes. It actually covers 4 countries (Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru), averages 3,750 meters in altitude and is dominated by massive active volcanoes. The climate is very cool and arid up here but daytime temperatures can get pretty hot when the sun is shining so we were constantly removing and adding layers of clothing.

Lake Titicaca, at 3,811 meters above sea-level, is the highest navigable lake in the world . The western part of the lake is in Peru and the eastern part is in Bolivia. From Puno it is possible to visit a number islands and a peninsula on the Peruvian side … we chose to visit the Uros Islands and the island of Takile. It was pouring rain at 7:00 AM on the morning that we planned to visit the islands, and it was very cold as usual. Furthermore, we knew that we would only need an hour, maybe 2 at the most, on the Uros, but it was difficult logistically for us to make both visits on the same day on our own, so rather than make our way down to the pier independently and board a collectivo boat like we would normally do, we reluctantly booked a tour from the hotel at the last minute.

The tour first took us to the Uros, 30 minutes from Puno, as the sun began to pier through the clouds and the weather cleared. The 44 Uros Islands are also known as the Floating Islands since they are entirely made, and impressively so, of floating reeds called totora which are in very large supply in the shallow areas of this part of the lake . The original purpose of these islands was actually defensive as they could be moved if a threat arose. We spent a very educational 90 minutes or so on one of the islands, which unfortunately also included unsavoury tactics to try to get us to spend additional money on tourist trap items. We were made to feel guilty if we did not succumb. We then began to make our way towards Takile, 2 hours away by boat, where life is apparently largely unchanged by the progress on the mainland, where cars and hotels are non-existent, and where the handicraft tradition, and textile art in particular, is regarded as among the highest quality not only in Peru but also in the world. Unfortunately, we only got to Chucuito, about a half hour from Takile, before the captain decided that we could not go any further due to the rough waters between the peninsula and Takile. We disembarked at Chucuito, a very chilly experience, hiked up a bit and got a glimpse of Takile from afar before making the 2 ½ hour journey back to Puno (downwind this time), which involved a second stop in the Uros for one of those god awful "tourist lunches". Takile evidently was not meant to be.

The next day, we decided to move on to the Bolivian side of the lake, to a small lakeside travellers' haunt that goes by the name of Copacabana, from where we planned to visit the famed Isla del Sol . We occupied front row seats of a collectivo van destined for the border town of Yunguyo which is about 2 km before the actual border. It’s a pleasant walk from there to the border along the lake and that’s what many people do, otherwise mototaxis can be hired for a nominal amount. Well in this case, the regular 2 ¼ hour ride to the border wound up being 4 hours, and we were lucky. The local indigenous inhabitants of the area were protesting something and put up road blocks starting three kilometres before Yunguyo, sitting in groups at various locations in the middle of the road, and with broken glass sometimes sprinkled across the road. Needless to say, the collectivo therefore dropped us 5 km short of the border. We started walking carrying our backpacks, not fully understanding at first that the road was being blocked by protesters and that we had 5 km to go. We thought that we were the normal 2 km away and that the people were simply hanging out on this Saturday morning in communal fashion … the police sure appeared to be laid back. But then we encountered travellers arriving on foot in the opposite direction who told us that they had been walking for a grueling 2 hours with their packs from the border and only then did we understand what was really happening. An enterprising young local with a motorcycle on the other side of the blockade then offered to take us for 5 soles ($2) so Nat and I and our 2 backpacks hopped on the back of the bike thinking that we were in business, but we only made it a kilometre, maybe 1 ½ km, before the next blockade and we were back on our feet again. We walked for maybe 500 meters or so when we noticed that one big bus, not ours, had somehow made it through, or rather around, and it was waiting in the distance. As we approached, the ayudante (the driver’s helper) called out and signaled to us to hurry and to board, so we did, with our big backpacks still on our backs. The bus then started rolling slowly towards the border, but only until it was stopped by another roadblock, this one still some 2 km short. This time we walked the rest of the way, on the gently upward sloping road along the lake, with the hot sun and thin air doing a job on us at nearly 4,000 meters of altitude, until we finally reached the border where we changed some Peruvian Nuevos Soles into Bolivianos and then went through the process of first obtaining exit stamps from Peru followed by entry stamps from Bolivia. All of this for a couple of days on the other side of Lake Titicaca … this is going to be worth it I said to myself.

From the border, it was a short 8 km collectivo ride to the tiny lakeside town of Copacabana . This place is so much more pleasant than Puno, mainly because it is small with all of the facilities right on the shore of the lake. It took us a couple of days before we finally made it out to gorgeous Isla del Sol mainly because I chewed, and swallowed, a few too many coca leaves. Chewing coca leaves, which I purchased in Chiclayo when we first arrived in Peru, was a godsend in terms of solving all of my altitude issues, but swallowing them caused a whole other set of issues which came to light as we arrived in Copacabana. We learned in an Arequipa museum that coca leaves were found in the stomach of the Ice Princess, an Inca teenager who was sacrificed to the gods some 500 years ago by her elders and more recently discovered by archaeologists, so I erroneously figured that it was alright to swallow the residue of chewed up coca leaves... wrong ... now I understand why cows have multiple stomachs! In any event, for a while there, we were thinking that making it out to the islands on Lake Titicaca, no matter which side of the border we were on, was not meant to be. But we did finally make it to beautiful Isla del Sol, the boat ride was wonderful, and we hiked up to some small ruins on the island for a couple of hours before returning.

The moral of our Titicaca experience: everything has its quid! 
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