Lake Titicaca, part 2: Peru - from the surreal to the very real

   On the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca there are more tourists and seemingly less poverty.  You can feel the magnetic effect of the tourist mecca of Machu Pichu only 6 hours down the road, radiating wealth to its nearby constellation of Incan sites and natural wonders. 

   On Easter Monday we spent the day on Lake Titicaca visiting the Island of Taquile in the afternoon, having previously experienced the cartoonish cultural encounter that draws in tourists on the floating island of Uros.  It was as though the tourist board had designed every aspect of the interaction. 

   As we stepped foot on the spongey floor of the island we were greeted with song by seven women in traditional dress.  They ushered us into an open space between the huts, loosely attached to the island and as portable as my Goddaughter’s wendy house.  Here we heard from the village president – the man in the most colourful woolly hat – how the islanders have lived for centuries, regularly rebuilding their islands from fresh reeds and living off the bounty of the lake.  The visit was rounded out with a photo opportunity in the local clothing and a trip on a ceremonial boat to the island’s main gift market. 

   The strange thing was that it was all pretty real.  Chatting with the couple who invited us into their home and dressed us in their clothes, we found that there are in fact 1,900 people living like this on moveable islands anchored in the shallows of Lake Titicaca.  As we coursed through the reeds we spotted imported livestock, mainly pigs, rooting around on smaller island constructions.  The interaction with the locals was very much for show but quite apart from this were the facts of their daily lives: cutting reeds, hunting ducks, catching fish and otherwise being immersed in the isolated and close-knit associations of village life. 

   By comparison, the proper attached-to-the-bottom island of Taquile was a return to normality.  More Easter celebrations greeted us, in which the locals were dressed in colourful and outlandish costume, having something of a battle of the marching bands. 

   That night we were early to bed, ready for our bus ride to Cusco the following morning.  Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of our evening.  My stomach rumbling ominously I spent most of the time in our (thank God) private fully-tiled bathroom.  Having no hot water (it didn’t make it hot to the fourth floor, it seems) had been an annoyance for the first two days of our stay.  When the cold water running to the cistern shut down in the middle of an episode with a gastric bug it was somewhat more of a problem.

   I was in no fit state to travel in the morning and it was only thanks to Kizzy’s tender loving care and my mum’s thoughtful supply of Loperamide that I was able to be transported the following day.  Certainly we were due a bout of traveller’s sickness and of all the places to get it a lovely hotel room in Puno was the best we could have chosen.  For future reference, at times of such distress, cold tiled surfaces are your friend and Loperamide stops you up (or in my case turns off the tap) for about 4 days.  And Kizzy is gracious enough not to laugh and take photos.

Lake Titicaca, part 1: Bolivia

   From Sucre we took an overnight bus to La Paz, the other capital of Bolivia.  One of our guidebooks invited us to take in the café culture of the city.  However, with a million people and almost as many motorised vehicles packed into a small steep-sided valley the effect was claustrophobic, heightened by the shortness of breath from the altitude and pollution.  We only stayed long enough to have a curry at the genuine London curry house, complete with eye-watering vindaloo and a young American chap foolish enough to order it.  The next day we hopped on the first tourist bus we saw going to Copacabana, three hours away on Lake Titicaca.

   Kizzy was upset at the very concept of Lake Titicaca.  The locals proudly boasted it to be the world’s largest high-altitude lake.  “It’s not the highest and it’s not the largest”, she noted disdainfully, “so what’s so special about it?”  At 3,800 metres above sea level it is the best place to get altitude sickness and sea sickness at the same time.

   On our first day by the water we took a slow boat to Isla del Sol, birthplace of much of the Incan mythology.  The scenery and the weather were both pleasant and the hilly trail didn’t leave us breathless so we were satisfied that we had acclimatised to hiking at altitude.  Our second day by the lake was Good Friday and from what we had been told, Copacabana had the best celebrations in Bolivia.

   We had enjoyed the Palm Sunday service in Sucre the previous week and talked a couple of German girls into joining us for the Good Friday evening mass.  There was promise of a parade afterwards for us to look forward to.  The service was watched over by lifelike effigies of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, both of whom sustained a steady stream of pilgrims pressing through the crowd to lay hands on them. 

   After an hour the church was packed and thronging.  Jesus was taken from the cross and interred in a glass coffin.  We had the surreal experience of joining a procession of men dressed in white robes and pointy white hoods who escorted Jesus and his mother out of the church and around town, stopping periodically to mark the fourteen Stations of the Cross.  The priest led the escort, continuing to preach from a PA system on the back of a Toyota pick-up truck while the congregation packed the narrow streets of Copacabana with candles and responsive prayer.  In between stations a truly dreadful marching band provided musical accompaniment.  They atoned for their lack of talent and with sheer stamina, playing the same 20 bars of music over and over again for 90 minutes as Jesus was held up by the traffic around the main square.

Adventures on the Altiplano

   After Uyuni we took a bus at a civilised hour to Potosi.  We had toyed with the idea of a tour into the mines of Cerro Rico, but perhaps thankfully we were rained out for our two days in town.  We have resolved to watch “The Devil’s Miner” at some later date instead.  From Potosi we travelled to Sucre, the delightful capital of Bolivia.  On our arrival on Saturday night everyone was keen to tell us about the amazing Sunday market in Tarabuco, 65km to the South East. 

   We set out early in the morning on Palm Sunday, having been assured that local transport was just as easy and half the price of the tourist buses.  After 40 minutes of slow progress we found ourselves at a standstill in the midst of a traffic blockage caused by a local car rally (now that would have been worth seeing).  As soon as traffic started to move our bus suffered a blow out and pulled over to change the tyre. 

   Human nature is a funny thing.  Bus drivers in Bolivia find it hard to go anywhere unless all their seats are taken and the standing room is oversubscribed.  As soon as the bus pulled over the standing passengers all disembarked and we were about to follow until we noticed everyone else remained seated.  With at least another hour to go, no-one wanted to be mixed up with the standing passengers. 

   The jack turned out to be incapable of lifting an admittedly fully-loaded bus.  The driver’s solution was to wedge rocks underneath the bus and dig around the tyre.   A few people jumped ship at that point, but not us.  Kizzy was determined to keep her seat.  I figured that if the bus did roll over it would head straight for the waiting crowd, in which case being in the bus would have to be better than being under it. 

   With cheers from our fellow passengers the spare tyre was fixed in place, the rocks removed and the rubber lowered back to the road, only to find the spare was also flat.  Knowing a hopeless cause when we saw one, everyone was out of the bus now.  An enterprising truck driver pulled over, knowing an opportunity when he saw one and offered to take us all to Tarabuco for nearly the same price as the bus ticket. 

   Twenty-six people, including a grandmother and an infant, can fit into the back of a modest sized flat-bed truck.  It was probably not a good idea, and I suspect it might not have been covered by our travel insurance.  It was certainly not a comfortable way to travel but we had the wind in our hair, and I spent most of the next hour grinning manically at Kizzy trying my best to give the impression that this was an exciting adventure. 

   When we arrived in Tarabuco we joined dozens of other tourists looking somewhat bewildered as to why they had left the beautiful city of Sucre for such a nowhere destination.  The highlight of the town was the rather gory monument to independence from Spain.  After poking around for a token 90 minutes we set off back to Sucre.  We were chauffer driven by an enterprising local student who had been in town for a family get-together.  At first we thought he was trying to make a profit but as the journey progressed it was clear he needed our money just to keep the car running.  I don’t quite understand the mechanics of it, perhaps in a case of wilful blindness, but every twenty minutes the steering got so bad he had to pull over and hammer at the front wheel.  A little over an hour later we made our fifth stop of the journey arriving safely back at our hostel.

Northern deserts, part 3: Uyuni

   The second day of our journey from San Pedro to Uyuni began with another 6:15 wake-up call and the arrival of our new driver Leonardo and his very flashy Landcruiser, which he had christened “Bronco”.  We set off at higher speeds but without any cause for alarm.  There was more distance to cover and more stops to enjoy views over lakes, volcanoes and deserts.  My favourite stop was at the Arbol de Piedra – the tree of stone.  Although that is the structure featured on the most postcards, there were many large rocky outcrops in the immediate vicinity and soon they had tourists clambering all over them.

   It was funny taking the four wheel drive tour.  We had thought of it as a bold step crossing the deserts and mountains where busses fear to roll.  In reality we found ourselves part of a loose migration of 24 four-wheel-drives from various tour operators touting similar routes between San Pedro and Uyuni.  It was pleasant to meet up with some of the same people from place to place.  we were very much aware that the wild and forbidding reaches of the Bolivian high plains had been tamed.  It wasn’t such a bad thing.  We met three girls from England: Ash, Rachel and Sophie; and Josh from Holland at every stop and had a lovely time with them over dinner on the first night.

   There was one German family of five who also turned up at most of our stops.  Kizzy was amazed that anyone could take this route with children of 10, 7 and 1 years old.  But these were relaxed parents.  The scout leader in me was somewhat terrified to see the two eldest boys clambering unsupervised straight up a rock formation 15 metres high.  On reflection though I’m not sure I was any different at that age.  I remember mum getting into trouble on a school trip when she let me and bunch of my eight-year-old class mates get about the same distance off the ground in the trees at Rippon Lea.  The sight of Mrs McColl streaming across the lawns shrieking “get those children down!” still brings a smile to both our faces. 

   Our second day on the road had finished with a visit to the Cementerio de Trenes just outside Uyuni.  As the regular route via the salt flats was flooded, our three-day trip to Uyuni had become a two-day trip with a one-day excursion tagged onto the end.  Day three started with yet another early wake-up call and departure at 5am to see the sun rise over the Salar (the salt flats).  In fact we weren’t dealt such a bad hand.  No sooner had we stepped outside our front door, than we were blasted with some soft-rock in Spanish by way of a fuzzy PA system on the local church.  It turns out they do this every morning in Uyuni.  A call to greet the day as it were.

   March being the tail end of the wet season the Salar was covered in cloud, obscuring the sunrise.  We amused ourselves taking lots of photos playing on the distorted perspectives allowed by the endless flat expanse of white salt.  After breakfast, the cloud had burnt-off and we were able to appreciate the beauty of the Salar against the blue skies and brilliant sunlight. 

   That evening we went for dinner with Maud and Vincent along with a couple of other Frenchmen and a Chilean/American girl, Cote, who has promised to show us the sights of Boston in August.  We set off in search of a local restaurant that came highly recommended.  On having no luck in finding the place, we settled for La Casa del Tourista.  It turned out to be a great start to an evening that ended with a beer-fuelled session of “Pongo en me equipaje…”.

Northern deserts, part 2: into Bolivia

   With early alarms becoming too frequent for my liking, we rose at 6:15 on Monday morning to have our last showers for a few days. We were taken to the Bolivian border by minibus, where we went through the regular border control procedures before being allocated to a four wheel drive for our journey.

   In considering our journey through the high Andes I had resolved not to try the coca leaves, said to help with altitude sickness.  However, after my discomfort at the geysers the previous day I was ready to grab at anything that had even a slim chance at helping me.  I still had my unidentified herbs, which I dutifully added to my tea and took the remainder across the border.  As I don’t know what they are, I have no idea if they are legal, but thankfully Bolivian border control aren’t too fussy at 4,200m.  Fortunately, I wasn’t gripped with nausea and headaches so there was some merit to my combination attack of western medicine, Bolivian narcotic, and heaven-knows-what in my tea.

   Joining us for the trip were Maud and Vincent from Paris, and Simon and Corinne from Bonn.  For the first day we were driven by the enigmatic Quinto, who defied every horror story we had heard for this trip and drove pleasantly and sedately, gently navigating the rough roads on his Landcruiser’s soft suspension. 

   The first day was marvellous.  We travelled past lakes of vivid colours: green, white and red expanses of water coloured variously by minerals and algae.  We ascended to the literal high point of our travels when we reached the Sol de Mañana geyser at 4,800m above sea level.  Having being told that the Geyser del Tatia was the world’s highest geothermal field at an altitude of 4,300m we were surprised to find this beauty.  I enjoyed it a lot more, but perhaps that had something to do with my physical wellbeing.  There was another thermal spring, this one a pleasantly consistent warm temperature and without the freezing cold costume change. 

   Our day finished with an hour or so at Laguna Colorado, a vivid red with its algae active in the afternoon sun and home to a few thousand flamingos only too happy to pose for our photos.  It was a marvellous start to a trip that ranks among the best things we’ve experienced in South America.