Puno and La Paz and the Altiplano (three days, so a bit lengthy)


Firstly the hotel was fairly grand even though the exterior was architectaully quite bland. Like almost all the hotels, there is no iron available and the laundry-cleaning rates quite high, washing in the bath and wearing crushed shirts again!

Puno is again quite high at about 3830 metres, so we have been on the “slow and easy” program. Whilst the altitude is manageable for us low-landers you do get short of breath easily particularly early in the morning (dry nasal passages) and when climbing steps or just going up hill generally. A couple of our group have had to resort to an oxygen fix, generally those a bit older and larger in frame (and carrying excess kgs).

On the first morning we did the obligatory Uros floating islands tour. Put simply very unique and enjoyable. Each man-made island is some 2 metres thick with a base of reed root mass covered by about a metre of cut reeds, floating in some 20m of water (with anchor ropes up to 300m long). A bit squishy to walk on, just like walking on soft earth or a hard mattress. Each island is about 40-50m long and a bit narrower and supported a family clan of around 40 people. Small bedroom huts for each family (some with tv, power supplied by solar panels. Visited the primary school where the kids sang to us in their native language, French English and Spanish. Whilst they live subsistence style, tourism is now at the very least, an important $ earner. Saw how they made the islands and the reed boats, the latter requiring constant replacement and upkeep and the latter have a life of less than a year even when fortified by thousands of old plastic drink bottles. We were led to believe that the islands would probably no longer exist in traditional style if not for tourism, certainly out-boards would have replaced man power on the boats and rafts.

We also took the optional arvo tour to the nearby archeological site at Sillustani, a burial site which well and truly predated the Inka`s. Like all the sites we have visited there is quite a spiritual aura around the place. On the way passed some irrigation works some of which date back to 400 BC. Again as with the terraces, much of what we have seen predates the Inka`s by up to a millennium. I guess we had not well understood this before we came here.

Visited a working farm on the way back, supporting three generations in a cluster of small adobe buildings with the most basic of facilities (no phone, power, mains water etc). Again they welcome the intrusion of the tourist busses inviting you inside and to taste their wares. Whilst in some ways it is a bit demeaning having people poking into their lives and possessions, like the islanders, the dollars earn`t by either donation or from the purchase on souvenirs is obviously gratefully received. This particular farmer was a real showman, demonstrating how they tilled the fields (all by hand), ground the grains and lived and farmed generally.

Early rise for day two to get the bus to the border and Copacabana (would you believe the original one after which the Brazilian beach was named) to catch the Catamaran to the Ilsa de Sol, the fabled birth place of the Inka`s. The boarder crossing was a real circus, lining up on the Peruvian side to clear immigration and then on the Bolivian side to clear both customs and immigration, in what can best be described as adobe sheds. Not sure our photographs were perused in the process. Copacabana was a surprise a really thriving village with a very impressive Moorish influenced church and the obligatory craft market, offerings if not from the same factories as before, the Bolivian equivalent, (at least they are not made in China like ours)! Only toured the church from the outside (although I did peep inside), we are a bit churched and marketed out.

Cat to the island, an archeological tour which contained a surprise underground museum –display. Saw all four versions of the cameloids, and recommenced the cruise to Huajata, which really was only a wharf and a very small village. The rural landscape comprises terrace after terrace on the hills and mountains now mostly un farmed and a continuum of small and holdings on the Altiplano. If not subsistence just above it. Interestingly there were some architectural differences despite the people being of the same ethnic group, the Aymara.

A 2 & half hour bus trip up and across the altiplano to La Paz and its twin city of (name escapes me). The latter is one of the boom towns growing by 10,000`s of thousands annually and lies on the plateau well above La Paz. The usual traffic mayhem. La Paz lies in a canyon where unusually the more well of live in the lower altitudes (more oxygen and cooler climate).

Today we went on the city tour visiting the main square and cathedral (Jameses opted out of the tour), the witch market and finally the Valle de Luna, an eroded landscape well worth the visit. Lunch in a garden restaurant in an upper class suburb, very nice.

Tomorrow to Argentina.

Adios