Avoiding Northern Bolivia

Trip Start Sep 27, 2005
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Trip End Mar 07, 2006


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Flag of Peru  ,
Wednesday, December 21, 2005

After the strain of walking the Inca Trail we headed for some light relief at Lake Titicaca. Unfortunately it wasnīt so easy. At Lake Titicaca we went on a 2 day boat trip. There are two permanently inhabited islands on the Peruvian side and we took the boat from Puno out to the first one. There we climbed to the top of the island to let the locals try and sell us something before having lunch. This was the typical Andean soup, followed by rice, meat and a small salad. From Ecuador to Lake Titicaca this has been our staple. After this it was a pleasant downhill walk through the farm land to a headland where we re boarded the boat to travel to the other island. On this other island we stayed with local people in groups of 2 or 3. To work up an appetite for the evening meal. This involved a six aside football match against the locals for 30 minutes. It doesnīt sound much but at 4200m above sea level competitive football is tough. We used rolling substitutes but an 18 year old refused to replace me as he said I was doing better than him
01 Looking across Lake Titicaca
01 Looking across Lake Titicaca
! After the game the touring side were left gasping for air except for the goalkeeper who wondered what all the fuss was about. After the football we went back to out lodging places and the family cooked a meal for us. I was sharing with an Australian guy and he and I went to the kitchen to see things prepared. It is a bit of a shock to see a meal cooked on a beaten earth floor in an adobe building above a tiny clay stove with wood fire. The meal was a potato soup followed by rice, potatoes and carrots, all boiled. We paid for our lodging by bring staple foodstuffs such as rice, flour, eggs and pasta. After the meal we were leant a poncho and a hat and taken to a fiesta. There were two pan pipe bands and the local people dragged us off our feet to dance with them. Luckily the dances were very simple so it wasnīt difficult to follow.

The next morning it was back to the adobe kitchen and pancakes for breakfast before heading back to the landing stage. One thing about the people on these islands was how happy they were. They seemed to enjoy life enormously. From this island we headed to the floating reed islands. This as manmade by a small tribe of people who use them as a defense because they can move them around the lake. They live on them, farm them, do everything on them! It was very strange to walk across the surface of them and know there is just 6 feet of rotting straw beneath your feet
02 Basketball at 4200m
02 Basketball at 4200m
.

Due to the political problems in Bolivia we headed down to southern Peru and then into Northern Chile to a place called San Pedro de Atticama. Thereīs not much to say about it except that it was extremely poor and there wasnīt much to see in the town. Outside the town we did two things. Firstly we went to an area called the Valle de la Luna, so called as the astronauts are supposed to say that it is the one place on Earth that most looks like the moon. We went there to watch the sunset and then some park rangers came along and told us to get out as we were waiting too long and they wanted to go home. After that we went to an amateur astronomerīs place in the desert. This was from 11 until 1am. Here he had a number of telescopes set up and we were able to see globular clusters, some galaxies, Mars, Saturn and the Moon in very good detail.

From here itīs all steam ahead to very high altitude and Bolivia.
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