After another trek in the Cusco area (look at the pictures under the Photo Gallery "Cusco to Lamy Trek", a fill description of this trek can be found at http://journals.worldnomads.com/will/) we got a bus south to Lake Titicaca, the world´s highest nevigable lake at 3810m, which straddles the Peruvian-Bolivian border. On the Peruvian side, we stayed in Puno and spent a very bright sunny day out on the water visiting the floating islands and the large island of Taquile.
The Uros people still live on their floating reed islands as they have done for over 3000 years. They used to survive from fishing and hunting duck, but now tourism is their mainstay as they show visitors around the little islands and take them out for a ride on a traditional reed boat. The islands are made of piles of thick reeds which are then anchored to the lake bed by long poles; they need monthly maintainenance but a good island can last 15 years! Walking on one is like treading on a piece of foam. The Uros people still live in huts made of reeds with some wood, but many now have solar panels to power light bulbs and, of course, a TV.
Our boat then took us to the (non-floating) island of Taquile. People here keep animals and grow a few crops but again, tourism - both Peruvian and foreign - now brings in most money. It has helped to revive old weaving skills. Whilst the women weave, the men are known for their particularly good knitting with fine red woolen hats being their speciality.
Around Puno bay the lake is contaminated as all the waste ad sewage flows staight into it. But further out into the deep clear blue water the lake retains its varied species, including a giant endemic frog, big tasty kingfish and abundant trout.
In Puno town we saw a big political rally addressed by Alan Garcia, one of the two presidential hopefuls in the run off election on 4 June. Having seen so many posters of Mr Garcia in the last two months plastered on trees, walls and windows, it was interesting to see him in the flesh. He has been likened to Tony Blair and his party to New Labour: he is now centre-left but older Peruvians remeber him as the socialist president of the 1980s. We sat on the balcony of a cafe overlooking the plaza and listened to his speech - slow, deliberate and somewhat repetitive and therefore fairly easy to understand. After the speech we saw a few punch-ups with rival supporters.
At the beginning of this week we crossed into Bolivia and stayed in the small town of Copacabana, on the lakeshore. Copacabana is like a 1960s seaside resort with small restaurants along the beach and a flotilla of pedalos. (The world´s highest pedalos?) It fills up at weekends and for religious festivals but is quiet mid-week.
In the evenings and at night it is very cold around the lake, in contrast to the radiation-bright sunny days. When you have exerienced a cold night here (none of the hotels have heating) and then the wonderful warmth of the sun in the morning, you realise why the Incas worshipped the sun and believed that the ruling Inca family were descended from it.
An hour´s boat ride from Copacabana is what is now called the Island of the Sun. According to Inca legend, the sun was born here! We caught an early boat to the island and walked along ancient paths over the hills, past Inca ruins and through small cultivated fields with great views over the lake.
Lake Titicaca is also home to the Bolivian navy. In the nineteenth century, Bolivia fought a series of disastrous wars with each of its neighbours loosing slices of territory to them all, including its entire coastline to Chile. In denial as to its land-locked reality, Bolivia still keeps a small navy with a little base at Copacabana.
Today we took the bus to Bolivia´s caital, La Paz, and experienced our first rain in a month. So far Bolivia seems noticebly poorer than Peru with less cars on the roads and fewer people around. Bolivia has a reputation as the home of the political demonstration and street protests have toppled two presidents in recent years. They now have a socialist president, Evo Morales, of whom Bolivians have enormously high expectations. We saw our first demonstration within an hour of entering the country and today, in La Paz, we´ve seen police with riot shields and C.S gas canisters hanging fro their waists.
