Lake Titicaca

Monday, July 12th, 2004 | Uncategorized

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Was AMAZING.

Lake Titicaca is proported to be the highest navigateable lake in the world, and it is very very big. On the Peruvian side has 2 actual islands that you can visit, and many, many floating islands. We stayed the night in one, and visited the other real one and a couple of the floating ones.

It was so beautiful. The water reflects the sky perfectly and kind of fades into it in the distance. And while we were there, the weather was perfect. Very sunny, with a few clouds. We experienced what is I think one of the most beatiful sunsets I’ve ever seen, and we got to taste a bit of the culture of its people as well.

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Puno——
My bus got into Puno a couple days ago, and I quickly found a good hostel, the Hostel Europa, and actually booked a tour of the lake and a stay at one of the islands through them for 45 soles, about 12 USD, not bad for 2 days. I then walked around for a bit and got some food. I like Puno, especially after being in Cusco for so long.

Puno lies on Lake Titicaca and is the only real choice for a base if you wanna explore the lake. It’s pretty small and while there are quite a few tourists there, it’s really easy to escape them :) They’ve got tons of markets and lots of restaurants with good Peruvian food. I also enjoyed some of the discotecas. I have to say I’ve never seen anyone line dance to a techno song before… Weird. Some salsa, and a lot of indigenous dances as well as ones that are a bit more recent but very specific to the indigenous people of Peru and Bolivia.

So anyway, I was out till 4am…
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The Uros——
…and then I was woken up at 7am to meet everyone for the boat. Ugh. But totally worth it.

After 3 hours on the boat, our first stop was one of the floating islands. Smaller than I thought they were still pretty impressive, they are built out of a plant that grows on the lake, and more is added on the top every few months as the bottom rots away
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Manzanita——
We then headed to the bigger island, where all the gringos were taking in by different families to spend the night. Very cool, we all ate homecooked food (if way too much of it) and had a good chance to talk to our families. The island itself was charming, the houses and paths were in better condition than I’ve seen anywhere yet, if a bit primitive.

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The island is about 4000 people, and their economy is agriculture, they used to sell their food, but now it is just for their own consumption. Tourism is obviously a huge source of their money now, but they’ve been amazingly smart and opted to NOT build any hotels, and instead they rotate for who gets to take in the tourists and get paid. This is awesome because it means everyone benefits from our dollars.

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Around sunset we walked up a REALLY, REALLY long path to the temple of the Pacha Mama. And the sunset…was indescribable. From the temple, the highest point of the island you could see water everywhere and a sky that was different everywhere you looked. In places fiery with the sunset, cloudy, or distant and done in pastel, with snow topped mountain far away.

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