Where's Andrew

PUNO, PERU & COPACABANA, BOLIVIA - NOVEMBER 9 - 12

On the Bus to Puno

My bus leaves Arequipa for Puno at about 9:00AM. It is about a 7 hour bus ride to Puno and the first 2 to 3 hours is along the same roa my tour van drove to Chivay on the Colca Canyon tour. This part of southern Peru is a high plateau in the desert that is 4000m or more above sea level. The landscape is quite barren and there are mountains and volcanoes that tower above us.

About an hour before getting to Puno, I see Lake Titicaca for the first time. It is a huge lake that feels more like a sea because of its size. You can't help feel like you are at sea level but the lake is situated at 3855m. The water is clear and a turquoise colour a little less vibrant than water you see in the Caribbean. Lake Titicaca has some of the oldest found remains of human settlements than almost any other part of South America and has always had a special religious significance to the many ancient cultures that lived on and around the lake including the Incas.



Plaza de Armas

 I arrive in the Puno bus station just before 4:00PM and find a tour company and book a half day tour to the Uros Islands for tomorrow morning and then catch a cab to the Plaza Pino. I find a room at the Kollas Inn for $12US a night and decide to explore the town a bit before sunset. I wonder from the town centre down to the water front, although the lake is beautiful, the town is not as the architecture is not very colonial or interesting and the town is dirty. It is also supposed to be quite dangerous and I've been warned by the lady I bought the tour through and the people at my hotel not to leave the city centre. Just after sunset, I head back to my hotel. I feel like pizza and my guide book recommends the Trattoria El Buho Pizzeria and I have a very good pizza for dinner.

Tour Boats in Puno´s Harbour

The next morning, I'm picked up at 9:00AM by a tour van and taken to the lake front to catch a boat to the Uros Islands. There is about 30 tourists on the boat and it takes about 45 minutes to get to the Uros Islands. The Uros are floating islands in Puno Bay made of reeds and most of the islands are a bit smaller than a football field. The islands are in 2 long parallel rows with a waterway between. Typically there are 6 to 10 families that live on each island and each island has it's own name. The men spend their days hunting and fishing on the lake while the women cater to the many tourist who come to the islands. Originally in the 1400s, the local indigenous population fled from their towns to floating communities to evade the conquering Incas.

When the colourfully dressed women on each island see our tour boat, they run over to the side of their island where the boat is and start waving at us trying to get the boat to come to their island. Tour boats stop at various islands to see how the people live and the women all have textiles and trinkets to sell. After passing a few islands, our boat finally comes along side of one island. This island is called San Juan and there are 8 families that live here.

When I get off the boat I'm surprised how firm the reeds are that the island is built out of. One of the women invites me and a couple of others to see her house, it is made of bamboo and reeds with a



The Chief Showing Us How the Islands Are Built

 thatch roof and is just one modest sized room. We then are all invited to site down in a semi-circle and our guide explains how the island was made with the help of a the chief of the island. They even have a miniature island complete with huts and dolls as props, it's kind of amusing. The reeds are actually built on top of floating reed roots that are about 60cm deep. The reeds are laid horizontally in rows that cross each other and these layers of reeds are usually about 1m deep. They use ropes to tie the floating reed roots together and an island will last for about 3 - 5 years before being replaced by a new one. 

After our island building demonstration, a few of

the women sing us a couple of local songs. They then sing songs in French, German and a very strange version of Row, Row, Row Your Boat in English. Then a reed boat catamaran takes us to one of the larger island where some small stores are located. The boat is paddled by one of the women and the chief and is big enough to hold all of us. There is quite a few of these larger islands and one even has an elementary school for the local children. There is no high school so the older children head to Puno most mornings for school. After our guide tells us that there were only 2 or 3 floating islands 15 years ago and now there is over 60, I can't help but feel that these islands are really

only here for the tourist business and not because of a traditional way of life but it was still interesting to see thes islands and their inhabitant.

After about 2 hours in the islands, we get back on the tour boat and head to Puno. We arrive at about 12:30PM and I'm driven back to the hotel where I grab some lunch, pick up my backpack and head to the bus terminal. I buy a ticket to Copacabana which is on Titicaca across the boarder in Bolivia about 4 hours away. As I choose my seat on the bus floor plan, I see Shane & Seleka's name on the passenger list and a few minutes later, I see them in the terminal and we sit down and chat about our experiences in the Colca Canyon.

Just before our bus leaves at 2:30PM, I'm sitting in my seat and the woman in front of me tries reclining her seat as far back as it will go. Unfortunately, this bus is not one of the real nice double decker buses that I have been on throughout Peru and it does not have the same leg room, this ladies seat reclines part way then hits my knees. She starts banging her back on her seat to try and force it back and I lean forward and say, "I'm sorry, but you are not going to be able to put your seat any farther back as it is hitting my knees." I've met some real nice travellers from England on this trip but this lady is not one of them and she replies, "I really need to put my seat back because the lady in front of me has reclined

hers and I'm just squished." I say, "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you want me to do. There is just not enough leg space for some one tall, just take a look and you will see what I mean." As I say this, I realize I am talking to someone who is a real live smurf. She can't be more than 5 feet tall and weighs less than 100lbs and she saying she's squished on the bus? Her boyfriend\husband then weighs in with, "There's a seat in the middle of the back row with unlimited leg room. Why don't you move back there?" I use every bit of self control I have and don't smack him in the back of the head and say, "No, I'm happy with my seat by the window, but thanks for the suggestion." During the next couple

of hours, this woman tries to recline her seat farther 3 or 4 more time until I stick my knee right in the middle of her seat. She feels by knee right through her seat and quickly turns around and glares at me and I just smile back. It's a good thing her boyfriend did not have any more helpful comments or there really would have been a problem when we got off the bus.

The views of the lake on the 2.5 hour drive to the Bolivian boarder are fantastic. We stop at the Peruvian side for our exit stamp and then are soon through the Bolivian side with our entry stamp. I've been in Peru for over 6 weeks which is the longest of any country I've been to yet and I loved it. There is so much to do and see there. Most travellers know about Cuzco, Machu Picchu and the Colca Canyon but many of the travellers I met don't go north of Lima. The trekking in Huaraz is the best in Peru, Chachapoyas has awesome day treks and ruins and the history and the areas around Cajamarca are fantastic making the north as good as the south. Although the Galapagos and Little Corn Islands have been 2 of may favourite individual destinations, Peru is definitely my favourite country that I have been to so far. And it helps that the people are so friendly and the cost of things are so low especially in the north of Peru. I would recommend anyone planning a trip to South America to make Peru their destination but the country is so big you would want 3 weeks at a minimum.

Hiking Up the Trail From Challapampa

Copacabana is only about 30 minutes from the boarder so we are soon there. Bolivia is 1 hour ahead of Peru so by the time we get to Copacabana, it is almost 7:00PM. Shane, Seleka, another traveller we met from Australia named Andrew and myself start looking for a hostel. There are a couple a few blocks out of town listed in my guide book but we decide to stop at a few along the way closer to the main plaza and we find some rooms at a decent hostel. My room with a bathroom is $8US a night. As we check in, we stumble across Brad and Liz who Shane, Seleka and I met in Guatape a couple of months before and who I keep running into. They've been in town a couple of days and they suggest a really nice restaurant where we all go for an awesome meal. I have some pork chops which are around $5US and they are awesome. I've only been in Bolivia for a few hours and I can already tell that it will be good for the travel budget.

Beach at Challapampa

The next morning, I'm up at 7:00AM to catch a small ferry to the Isla del Sol. I buy a ticket to Challapampa at the north of the island and I plan to walk to the south end of the island and catch a return ferry from Yumani which is also included on my ticket. The passenger ferry leaves at just after 8:30AM, it holds about 40 passengers and is full and of course, Brad and Liz just happen to be on the boat. It takes about 2 hours to get to Challapampa, it's not that far away but the boat just goes so slow. These boats are 15m long wood boats that they power with a small 75 horse outboard engine. The captain steers from the back of the boat and cannot see what is in front of us very well. About half way into our trip,


Inca Ruins at North End of Isla del Sol

 we go through a small passage between some islands and there is a boat coming the other way. The passage is narrow but there appears to be plenty of room but we collide with the other boat in the passage. Luckily it is a glancing blow and no damage was done and it was not too jarring for the passengers. It was funny to listen to our captain yell at the other captain. During his tirade I found out that the word Bozo means the exact same thing is Spanish as it does in English.

We arrive in Challapampa just after 11:00AM. There is a few of us planning to walk to the southern end of the island including Brad and Liz, Michael (who I trekked with in the Colca

Canyon) and a girl from Holland that he is with, a couple from the US, a couple of girls from Sweden and a girl from Denmark. So we all start on the hike which at first heads north to some Inca ruins. We have to pay $1.5US to walk to these northern ruins which aren't very impressive. There are supposed to be 3 ruins, one is some farming terraces which are still in use, another we did not even see and the last are some Inca homes on the northern point of the island.

After seeing the Inca homes, we turn south and head down a trail that runs down the spine of the island. The weather is very cloudy and we can see rain falling at various locations around us. It is also very windy blowing 25 to 30kms and it is quite cold. It is about 13kms or so to Yumani and should take about 2.5 to 3 hours. The trail winds it way uphill for the first half of the walk. The views of the lake are beautiful but the visibility is limited a bit because of the weather. The trail itself is quite remote as all the villages and homes are right along the coast but this doesn't stop the locals from putting a toll booth at the middle of the trail and we pay another $2US to continue on the trail. After

another hour, we are getting close to Yumani and we come to another toll booth were we have to pay another $.75US. The cost was no big deal but it was annoying to have to pay 3 different times.

Brad and Liz are staying in Yumani for the night but the rest of us are suppose to catch a return ferry either at 3:30 or 4:00PM. We get to the harbour just before 3:30PM and find out that our company's boat is not coming. So we all have to buy another return ticket back to Copacabana. The guy from the US worked as a project manager for large IT projects for HP and we talk shop on the way back. I'm sure we drove his wife crazy during

the boat ride but it was kind of nice to talk business for a while. It is the first time I've talked work in any way on this trip so far other than telling people what I do for a living.

When I get back to Copacabana and go to the tour office where I bought the ferry ticket, I am quickly refunded my return ticket and told that because of the heavy wind, one of their boats could not make the trip which is why we had no return ferry. Kind of weird that the other boats were running but I was just happy to get a refund.

When I get back to my hostel, I find out Shane and

Seleka have left for La Paz. They were not sure what they were going to do but I will probably see them there. I'm tired after my hike in the wind and after having dinner at a Thai restaurant, I head to bed fairly early. In the morning, I'm going to catch a bus to La Pas which is about 4 or 5 hours away. I'm really looking forward to playing golf at the highest elevation 18 hole golf course in the world and go bike riding down the Death Road. I'm also very excited about booking my 1st trip to the jungle and I need to finally get my Tourist Visa for Brazil at the Brazilian embassy. It's a real hassle to get a Visa for Brazil in Canada but I've read it is much easier here in South America, I hope that is the case because I don't want to get stuck waiting for a Visa.

More on La Paz in my next posting. Chiao.