Lake Titicaca - At 3,800m it's breathtaking

View of Puno from arriving bus

To anyone titillated by the name of this lake I will start by explaining that in the local tongue "Titicaca" means "great puma". Though I never did find out why they thought it looked like a puma, great or otherwise.

We slept well in the back room we had chosen (Alberto had offered us the alternative of a larger room on the top floor but it faced the noisy street) and the complimentary breafast was nice. Though it's just as well eggs are no longer considered the cholesterol poison they once were, because they tend to figure prominently in complimentary breakfasts in this part of the world. The free transfer to the port for the tour to the floating islands also went smoothly. The boat was never likely to set any speed records but this didn't matter because it didn't take more than 30 minutes to reach the floating islands anyway.

One of the floating islands

These islands are constructed by bringing in peat blocks that float and anchoring them to the lake bed up to 30 metres below using long poles. Reeds are laid in alernate directions on top of the peat blocks, until they are up to three metres thick. A fresh layer of reeds is added every 2-3 weeks but the island itself will last 30-40 years before a new one is needed. Originally the inhabitants of these floating islands made their living from fishing and sailing their reed boats around the lake to trade. Nowadays of course much of their livelihood comes from tourism - with an entrance fee to the islands precinct and from the sale of handicrafts and souvenirs.

One of the twin-hulled boats made of reeds

Our visit included an explanation from the tour guide of how the islands are constructed and maintained and, for another small fee, a ride in one of their twin-hulled reed boats to a neighbouring island. So yes, it does seem a bit commercialised, but on the other hand it is hard to see how they could maintain their unique lifestyle in today's world otherwise.

The return trip to Puno harbour was uneventful and the free shuttle had us back at our hostel with an hour to spare before we needed to leave for the bus station. We filled in our time by going for a walk to the main square for a look around and to explore the many craft shops in that area. We found a nice bakery and bought ice creams along the way. Our assessment of the town's traffic fumes from last night wasn't improved, however.

Once we were back at Totorani, Alberto flagged down a taxi for us and paid the driver to not only take us to the bus station but to find the counter where we had to pay our departure tax and show us the gate number we needed to wait at for the bus to Copacabana. The scheduled departure time was 2:00pm, but in Peru time that translated to about 2:40pm or once potential passengers had finished turning up - we're not quite sure which was the critical deadline!

Nothing of note to report about the bus trip other than the process of crossing the border into Bolivia. This involved getting off the bus to get an exit stamp from Peru, then walking a few hundred metres to the Bolivian checkpoint to get our entry stamp for Bolivia. There were no customs procedures, in fact our lugguage never left the bus which drove through the border and picked us up after we had cleared Bolivian immigration. There was also the opphortunity to change some money before getting the Peruvian exit stamp. Forewarned that there was only one unreliable ATM in Copacabana (albeit in a guide book that was printed three years ago) I took the opportunity to change some of my leftover Brazilian Reals - though I strongly suspect that the exchange rate was not very flash. Of course the other thing we had to do at the border was put my watch forward an hour as we were changing time zones.

It was dark by the time we were unloaded in the main square of Copacabana but our room at the Utama Hotel was only two blocks away so it didn't take us long to get there and check in. Though the short walk uphill had us puffing, given that we were now at about 3,800 metres above sea level.

The plan was to take a day trip to the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) tomorrow and then catch a bus on to La Paz on Sunday morning. The receptioist at the hostel said they could arrange tickets for both and just include the cost in our final room bill. However there was no "tourist" bus to La Paz until 1:30pm and catching a local bus to La Paz (with all our luggage) was strongly advised against by both the receptionist and the guide books - it is not considered safe - so it looks like only a day in La Paz and not a day and a half as we had hoped.

But now it felt well and truly like dinner time so after a brief look around (to locate the two ATMs now in town, and confirm that 1:30pm was the earliest tourist bus to La Paz) we settled on a dinner establishment that boasted both apple and lemon pie for dessert and the acceptance of Mastercard. The meal was pretty good, and after initially saying that he had no sparkling mineral water the waiter apparently ducked out and procured some from elsewhere in the street, which was nice. The lemon pie actually turned out to be lemon meringue pie - which was OK but not what we had hoped for.

The next disappointment became apparent after we had retired to our room. It transpired that the function centre about 50 metres up the street was hosting some sort of event that entailed the almost unbroken performance of a brass cacophony on maximum volume, accompanied by even louder drums. (To call it a brass "band" would imply that they were well tuned instruments being played in synch by skilled musicians). The effect was as though a load of brass bells was continuously being dumped on concrete right outside our second floor window. The only merciful thing about this performance was that it wound up at about midnight.

The next morning we enjoyed a very fine breakfast in the heated dining room before commencing the day's activities. It transpired that although the receptionist last night had offered to arrange tickets for today's boat trip to Isla del Sol he hadn't actually done so. However the hotel owner did still drive us down to the "dock" where we were able to buy the tickets ourselves for the trip. I used the word "dock" advisedly because in this case it actually consisted of a rickety path of wooden slats about six inches above the water level, which they were careful not to let too many people on at once as we made our way out to the boat.

The boat itself was a state of the art affair that had even more crew members than it had life jackets. The crew - including the captain - numbered one. The other noteworthy feature of the boat was that those of us sitting downstairs in the shade, instead of up on the roof in the sun, were in danger of being suffocated by the exhaust fumes from the two outboard motors that seemed to contibute about one knot each to our bracing speed through the water. We were in no doubt as to why this was to be an all day excursion!

Our first stop, after about 90 minutes, was at Yumani on the Isla del Sol, where only a couple of travellers got off and a couple of locals got on. Most of us hardy day trippers were headed for Cha'llapampa which was about another 30 minutes onwards. Here we all alighted for the 45 minute hike to the Chincana, the former Inca temple on this island which Incan legend records as the birthplace of the sun. We fell in with a host of others, following a tour guide who spoke only Spanish, at least long enough to find our where we had to buy the entrance ticket for the national park in which the Chincana is located.

Thereafter we pretty much made our own way, as the path was well defined and in any case was populated with a host of other day trippers headed the same direction. Bearing in mind that it was a hot, cloudless day, we were at an altitude of over 3,800 metres and the path was mostly up, the going was not quick and we were content to take our time. I was not helped by the fact that I had lost the good replacement hat I had bought in Cusco so was feeling a bit exposed to the high altitude UV.



Remains of Chincana

The hike offered some good views, many of them reminiscent of the Greek Islands. The remains of the Chincana was an interesting maze of now roofless rooms, the stone work not as fine as other Inca structures we had seen but it has nevertheless withstood the passing of a few hundred years in pretty good order.

At this point the really keen hikers were heading off to walk 3-4 hours down the spine of the island to Yumani to meet the boat there. We didn't number ourselves in that group and were content to stroll back downhill to Cha'llapampa where our boat was due to depart at 1:00pm. True to Bolivian time it was more like 1:30pm before we were underway, so by the time we made it back to Yumani we only had about an hour ashore to explore before our return to Copacabana. We made use of the time to climb the steps of the Inca Stairway then continue on up hill - with frequent stops to get our breath back - until it seemed we were on the back of the path from Chincana. At this point we turned around and returned to the port.

Mindful of nearly being asphixiated this morning we sat on the roof of the boat for the return leg, despite the exposure of my hatless skull to the sun. Once safely back on the mainland we started back towards our hotel but detoured to investigate the sounds of brass "bands" and whistles coming from a nearby square.

Some of the dancers in the street parade

There we found in progress a full scale parade of bands and groups of costumed dancers. Obviously there was some kind of festival in full swing. We watched the festivities for a while before making use of one of the nearby ATMs and returning to the same establishment as last night for dinner. Not very adventurous, I know, but we had to try their apple pie this time.

Back at our hotel we were surprised (but pleased) to find that after our complaints this morning about last night's noise - and being told that there were no spare rooms to move to further from the function centre- we had in fact been moved to a spare room on the other side of the hotel. Unfortunately this didn't help as much as we had hoped because tonight's brass cacophony party noise came from a slightly differnt direction, so although it no longer sounded like it was just outside our window it was still quite loud. But worst than that, this time it went on until about 2:00am. Worst of all was that it started again - as loud as ever - at 6:00am!!

View of Lake Titicaca from Cerro Calvario

Thus we were feeling a little sleep deprived when we staggered down to breakfast this morning. After checking out and putting our bags in storage for a few hour we set off to climb Cerro Calvario, the hill a couple of blocks behind our hotel. As the crow flies it wasn't far to the top but the steepness of the climb and the altitude meant that it was a pretty hard slog. Part way up we were "rewarded" with a view of the open area where the brass cacophonies were still taking it in turns to drown out any hope of a quiet and peaceful Sunday morning. Despite this distraction we did manage to make it to the top where we were rewarded with a nice view of Lake Titicaca and Copacabana.

After walking down we bought some snacks and retired to the hostel lobby to rest a while before catching the 1:30pm bus to La Paz. Boarding the bus was the easy part. The bus actually being able to get out of town was much more difficult. The traffic jam caused by the ongoing street party (which had since left the open area above town from whence it had assaulted our ear drums most of the night to once again parade around the streets) was causing a bit of a problem. And it was exacerbated by a guy at the top of our street who was blocking one lane for a couple of hours as he jacked up his car to do some repairs on one of his front wheels. Our bus had no room to do a right hand turn as it needed to. Instead it did a left hand turn and proceeded to drive in reverse down the street we needed to be in for the first block. It then manage to do about an 11-point turn to get facing the right way before it could continue on its way.

Vehicle punt crossing Lake Titicaca

At least the first part of the trip provided many views of Lake Titicaca. After about an hour we reached the point where we had to cross a narrow part of the lake. There is no bridge of course, and not even a proper vehicle ferry. Instead we had to all get off the bus and pay to cross on one of a fleet of small boats that continuously plied back and forth. The bus meanwhile was eventually driven onto one of a similar fleet of punts which could carry just two vehicles at a time across the narrows. Once we were reunited with our bus on the far side it was then just a matter of onwards to La Paz. We gradually left views of Lake Titicaca behind as our next destination,La Paz, drew nearer.