Lake Titicaca - ha ha, that sounds like breasts

After a few epic blogs this should be a quicky!

From La Paz we caught a bus to the town of Copacabana as flo said (and were a bit weirded out by being told to get off our bus and then watching it floating away over the lake!). This is NOT the Copacabana in Brazil (which was apparently named after this town) nor the brain-rapingly horrific Barry Manilow song.

This was meant to be a short stop over in order to allow us to see the beautiful Isla del Sol however on arrival all went wrong. We soon realised that this was a town completely lacking a cash machine. Now this would not normally be a problem since in situations like this there is always at least one bank or suchlike ready and willing to give a cash advance on a credit card which would have been great had:

a) i not maxed out my credit card
and
b) flo not been travelling on her debit card - not good enough for the lovely folks at Prodem FFP.

So there we were, at about 7pm in a new town with literally no money (we had wisely delayed getting out money when we could have in La Paz until we got to our next stop). So it was about 7pm and we were getting hungry and yet with no way of securing any foodage. It shames me to say it but we resorted to begging - I found myself knocking on the door of the owner of our hotel (feeling very small especially since the hotel we were staying in was only costing us 10Bolivianos per person per night which is about £1.20 for the 2 of us) asking him to borrow some money to eat until we sorted out our finances the following day. Despite my offers of leaving my iPod as collateral he was having none of it and was quite happy to hand over 100Bs - more than we were likely to need for the evening!

The following day we realised that we were going to need some help and so bit the bullet and called home. Dad, who for those of you who dont know is currently disabled by a torn cruciate ligament (or so i believe) was amazing (thanks dad!) and drove down to town and hobbled both to his bank and my bank to sort out our financial woes.

Alas despite all his hard work we were undone by the ineptitude of the people at the Halifax (fucking Howard) and unfortunately were forced to make the trip back to La Paz (a 3.5hr bus journey) for the sole purpose of finding a cash point. While we were waiting for the bus to leave Copacabana there was a pretty horrific smell emanating from the old cholita sat in front of us but whilst we were gasping for air out of the small bus window we spotted flo's coursemate Jack and his girlfriend Claire, out on a brief stint in Peru and Bolivia! Whilst doing anything then was pretty impossible, we did manage to go out for a meal with them on our return to Copacabana 7hrs later!

With money came the ability to actually do the things that we had come here to do, namely visit the Isla del Sol, an island off the coast and a site of significance for the indigenous people as being the birthplace of both the sun and the moon! We made our way out on the boat (flo travels like a 7 year old, so this was guaranteed to be good!) We spent the night on the island and in the morning we began the walk across it and whilst we didnt really feel the significance afforded to some of the sacred rocks (looked just like rocks to us!) the scenery was staggering.



After we'd done this we had pretty much exhausted Copacabana and so moved on to Peru and the town of Puno!

At the bus station we heard someone touting the hostel that we'd planned on going to anyway and thinking that this could be our route to a free taxi ride we decided to show some interest. Somehow in the mix he managed to persuade us that this hostel (the one that he had been advertising) was too expensive and so had us sold on a different one instead, not really sure how this happened, but we found ourselves being ferried to this new hotel, and then subjected to a long and very persistent sales pitch from the same man who quickly moved from hotel tout to travel agent within seconds!

We eventually got away from him and into the safety of our room where we could decide what it was that WE wanted to do before getting back to him with our decision to do a 1 day tour and not the 2 day one he was pushing for (we´d heard scary things about having to dress up in traditional dress!)


So the following day we had an early start and were ferried to the port where we were put onto a boat headed for the reed islands of the Uros people of Lake Titicaca. These are a large group of artificial floating island manufactured by their inhabitants out of the enormous reeds native to the lake. We were greeted very warmly (more to do with our touristy cash than anything i think, maybe too cynically) but the islands themselves were very impressive and all squishy underfoot! Flo got a bit happy taking photos of all the kids in their brightly coloured clothes, and a bit too happy stalking one particular innocent little girl around the island which you will see if you check my flickr! After a brief talk about the people and their islands we were allowed to wander and see if we wanted to buy any of their wares (all of which completely authentically made on the islands and in no way available in the rest of peru, its just a coincidence that they have similar stuff)

After this we moved on to the next island Taquile which was, well, an island. Yes, it was pretty, and yes, the men did wear silly hats (always a highlight) but after the novelty of the reed islands and the 3hr boat trip it was a bit of a let down really!


So that was about it for Lake Titicaca and on to Arequipa (a journey we booked ourselves and NOT through our new stalker) !