Mar 30 - Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca 30 March

5am wake up, so 4 bleary eyed souls blinked at each other over a coffee and then loaded ourselves into the minbus for our journey to Lake Titicaca. Very exciting, it’s one of those places you have heard about since you were at school but never thought you’d see.

Our journey out of La Paz was the usual madness and mayhem with just the most horrendous traffic belching fumes. We climbed out of the valley into the upper reaches of the city and then out through El Alto. While this seems like an extension of La Paz, it is in fact a separate city. It is extremely high, extremely poor and extremely heavily populated.  In La Paz, the less money you have, the higher up you have to live.

Mountain shows how high El Alto is

The morning commute from El Alto to La Paz on mini buses

This area is where the people from the countryside move to so they can work or sell produce in La Paz. Over the last 30 years huge numbers have migrated into the cities from the land, so  now 70% of the 11m population live in 4 cities.

This politically is a very important area as protests are common in La Paz but if the El Alto area gets together and decides it does not like a government policy it carries huge weight due to the number of voters here that support Eva Morales the current indigenous president.chamged the name of the Republic of Bolivia to the Plurination of Bolivia then stood again on the basis that he had never fought an election for the Plurination and is now campaigning for a 4^th term.

Everywhere you look there are painted signs on the walls in El Alto with the name of the president and comments about his support for education etc etc. We take this with a pinch of salt however as one of our previous guides who used to work for the government in a skilled capacity told us that he was often sent out to paint signs like these on the walls……..

Out of the city at last and in to the countryside. We arrived at Copacabana and our first view of the vast Lake Titicaca. It is 8300km2, Just to get your head round the size of this takes some doing. Originally when the volcano first formed it, this lake joined the salt flats and went right down to where the border with Chile. Just vast.

However before we could get on to the Lake, we were taken round 2 museums. The first was the history of the Tiwanaka people who were indigenous to this area. We were given audio guides which had the most bizarre music and weird English accent and then hustled in to the most incredibly amateur and frankly hilarious museum we had ever been in. Given the lack of sleep, the music and the commentary, it was only a matter of minutes before we were all hysterical. We had to hide behind the stone monoliths until we could get our composure……….

Paul & Mandy trying to look interested...

Next was a much more interesting outdoor museum where they showed us the typical houses they lived in, we saw the reed boats they use on the Lake Titicaca and how they make them. All very interesting.

From there it was down to the hydrofoil for our journey across the Lake. Janette was just thanking her lucky stars it wasn’t a reed boat……. We loaded up the small and frankly old hydrofoil with our cases and off we set across the vast expanse of the lake.

Hydrofoil and boarding gate....

The vast Lake Titicaca

It was not at all what we were expecting and so was a real surprise and very interesting. Embarrassingly, non of us knew that half of Lake Titicaca was in Bolivia and that the border with Peru runs right across the centre of the lake, we thought it was ll in Peru.

It was very green and much of the first part of the trip could have been Derwentwater in the Lake District but as we got further out the topography changed and we began to see the Inca terraces on the hills of the small islands that form this area and many of the stone ruins.

Our first stop was Moon Island. In Inca times, this island was only for women, no men were allowed as this was where the Inca chief kept his harem and also where female sacrifice victims were selected and groomed.

Moon Island 

Inca Temple on Moon Island

From there on to Sun Island which was to be our stop for tonight in a tiny eco hotel at the top of the island run by indigenous people. We should have realised when they said top of the island…..  It was a 2 km trek uphill up steep stone stairs which at this altitude of  3900m is a killer. We got off the hydrofoil and left our cases, taking small overnight bags only which porters ran up the hill.

That left us camera bags etc, but not to worry, we had an escort! A local woman with a llama into which they loaded our remaining bags and a local man carrying a first aid kit and an oxygen tank !!!!

First Aid Sun Island style.....

Llama posing

Come on you lazy tourists......keep up

Another fit of the giggles ensued but off we set. After multiple stops to try and get our breath back we kept climbing. It is so high here, it is pretty tough, even though we have had some days to acclimatise. We finally made it to the top of the hill and our hotel.

Made It !!!

It was just fantastic. A charming little eco hotel, with beautiful gardens, rustic but clean rooms and the most stunning views. The sun which mercifully had been behind cloud for our climb came out and we all settled in for a relaxing afternoon on the pretty terrace overlooking the entire expanse of Lake Titicaca.

View from the hotel terrace

Beers on the terrace

Beer and a sunset later, we had an early dinner and off to bed after our 5am wake up.

The Best of the Rest..................