9. Peru - Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca

 

Lake Titicaca straddles the Peru/Bolivia border so this blog is definitely the last I’m writing about Peru.  This lake has always seemed to me to be another one of those impossibly romantic sounding locations but I hadn’t thought too hard, well not at all really, what it would be like but this wasn’t it.  I suppose I was expecting a desolate cold, empty altiplano denuded of trees but with reedy vegetation around the edge possibly with snow in sheltered spots.  I was certainly expecting a selection of snow-capped mountains to look at.  It is after all at 12,500 feet (same height both sides apparently) and it’s the highest navigable lake in the world.  At 3,232 square miles it is pretty big as well.  Dorset is 1,024 square miles.  However, it has towns around it and the one we were in, the eminently forgettable Puno was hot.   However, Puno does have the wonderfully named Machupizza Pizzeria.

one of the relaxed locals

We arrived after a night bus from Cuzco at about 06.30 as rested as you might imagine and booked straight into our hotel.  Bit of a problem here and one we were to find throughout Bolivia.  In the central lobby, off which all the bedrooms on the upper floors opened was an outdoor patio heater which the receptionist went to light until I told him not to.  If you don’t know, these produce Carbon Monoxide, known as the silent killer, and are clearly marked (unfortunately in English) as not to be used indoors because they are dangerous in unventilated areas.  I went as far as to write later to the hotel and Peru Hop who recommend the hotel, complaining about the danger.  The hotel naturally said they would change it (would you believe them ?) and Peru Hop, run by some young Irish fellas sent a good reply which seemed to me that they really did take notice.  The hotel gets lots of business from Peru Hop and I did point out that a hotel full of corpses was not a good advert for their recommendations.  

The classic visit at Titicaca is to the floating islands, habited floating platforms of reeds which are continuously replenished from the top as they rot from the bottom.  They’re substantial sizes, the one we visited being perhaps a couple of hundred 

yards long and fifty yards wide.  There’s a strange springiness 

to a walk on the island and a fall won’t hurt you unless it’s over the side into fifteen feet of water of dubious cleanliness. 

a floating island

The lake people, who wear impossibly bright clothing, charge wildly over the top prices for their souvenirs and we wondered if they really live there or just get the first boat out every morning.  The reed beds around the edge of the island was full of plastic litter so the islands were obviously quite civilised places.  I got talking to an Australian teacher here and was extolling the delights of mud bricks, yes, really.  It turned out that he had built his own house with mud bricks in Oz but had had to argue with the local council as to whether they were suitable.  He was on a one year paid leave.  He told me that it’s possible to work a full five day week and get only four days pay and after four years you take a year off with the money you hadn’t taken over the previous four years.  Sounds like a great system unless he was pulling my leg.

a reed boat - seemingly mainly for tourists

Then we set off for a real island called Taquile, firmly and quite naturally fixed to the bottom about another couple of hours boat ride away.  This seemed to be a mainly self sufficient agricultural place where we had lunch and like many islands had an atmosphere that just felt different from the mainland.  The weaving here is carried out in what looks like an absolutely back breaking posture.  The woman sits on the floor with the loom flat on the ground in front and spends nearly all the time leaning forward over it.  Women weave here and men knit and the knititing is very fine work indeed.  A good knitter is more likely to get a bride which I have to say is considerably more civilised than regular macho posturing.

 

some of that fine knitting
- with thumb nail for scale

The idea was that we all walked to the town at the top of the island and back to a different bay to catch the return boat.  It was steep and we were at 12,500 feet so I set my hat at a suitably rakish angle and off we set.  Most of the younger passengers were puffing as well as us so that was OK.  I’d not considered it before but a body of water this large will store heat and so Titicaca has a micro-climate all of its own.

Taquile local costume

In the 1800’s when we Brits made stuff for export all over the world, a ship was made in Liverpool, shipped across the Atlantic in pieces, carried on mules up the Andes to Titicaca and then assembled.  It was restored sometime in the last twenty years or so and can be seen seven (!) times a year puffing about on the lake.

Taquile Island

When we left Puno we were headed for the border about two to three hours away, and land borders in shall we say out of the way places are often not the easiest crossings.  The border staff are probably bored to death and there’s always the chance to make a little ’commission’ on the side.  This is why we were pleased to be crossing with Peru Hop guides to shepherd us through.  Apart from the usual bureaucratic form that you have to fill in every country and which you know full well never gets looks at, it was fine for us.  I read once about someone famous (can’t remember who) going to the US, who for the question ‘Purpose of Visit’ wrote ‘overthrow of the government’ and got straight in.  That wouldn’t be the same now, half of the country would want you stopped and the other half would want you let in.  I also understand if you’re visiting Australia and you’re asked if you have a criminal record, it’s unwise to say “I didn’t realise it’s still compulsory”.  Anyway, enough of this whimsy.   At the Bolivian border, one young woman from the USA had not got her visa in advance and absolutely pristine notes were required to pay for her visa, not even the slightest fold was acceptable.  Although it struck me that a well used bill is less likely to be a forgery.   US citizens have to pay $160 for a visa while most of us get in for free.  A young Texan told me that it dates back to when George Bush Sen. backed the burning and bombing of Coca farms, thus miffing the Bolivians.  Fifteen minutes from the border we were at our first Bolivian Hotel.

Lake Titicaca