From Machu Picchu to Lake Titicaca and into Bolivia

From Machu Picchu I needed to get back to Cuzco to go almost anywhere else. I decided not to support the extortionate prices of the train company so I walked the tracks back to Ollyantaytambo, said hello to the family I met there, and then caught a bus back to Cuzco. It was a long 6 hour hike back to Ollyantaytambo, but it was a scenic walk along the river, I got plenty of exercise, and the whole trip back to Cuzco cost 4 bucks instead of the 50 dollars. That's as many as two full days of travel in this part of the world!











In Ollyantaytambo I jumped on a tour bus heading back through the Sacred Valley to Cuzco and was even able to see another on of the sights on the way back. Back In Cuzco I had a great dinner with the daughter of the family in Ollyantaytambo, Edith. She was a tour guide at Machu Picchu and the archaeological sights around Cuzco so she showed me Saqsaywaman and a few other sights the next day. After our tour I was off again that night, heading 8 hours east to the lakeside city of Puno on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca.















I arrived in the early morning and figured out a place to stay for the night. At the hotel I stayed in they offered tours to the nearby “floating” islands in Lake Titicaca. That sounded good to me so I actually saw more of Lake Titicaca before much of the city of Puno. The islands were terrific yet heavily commercialized. For centuries the Uros people have been living on floating islands in the shallow waters of Lake Titicaca on large rafts of floating tortora reeds. This unique way of living was originally a method for the Uros people to distance them selves from the encroaching Incas and Collas, but now it is their way of life. And with all of the tourists that want to see there unique way of life it has become profitable to play it up a bit.

The islands were created by cutting sections or tortora roots from the shallows of the lake. The root sections which float are then tied together to create the base of the island. On top of the root sections layers of crisscrossing tortora reeds are placed to create an even carpet and fairly solid floor. The island is then floated to an appropriate place in the lake and staked and anchored to the bottom so that it doesn't drift away. On top of the island homes are built and life goes on. It's really an amazing way to live.

There is a small entrance fee to the nearly sixty floating islands with the proceeds being spread out among the community. Tour groups take turns at different islands to give each island a chance to sell their goods. The islanders have done an impressive job of showing off their way of life that you have to wonder where their real lives begin and the commercialism ends, still it is an amazing place to see. We visited two islands in our trip. The first was a smaller more typical island with four families living on it and the second was a larger island with more services such as a church, clinic, hotel, several small restaurants, and plenty of souvenir booths.





































Back in Puno I had a look around the city, caught up on the sleep I didn't get on the bus the night before, and went out that night. The next day I went to the Bolivian consulate to see if I could get my visa taken care of before getting to the border. Thanks to Bolivia's dislike of the Bush administration they imposed heavy visa fees for just American tourists. Americans now have to pay 135 dollars just to enter the country. This has happened in other countries as well. Between Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia I am looking at paying 600 dollars in just visa fees. Despite one's political leanings there is no doubt that the last 8 years of the Bush administration has fostered an incredible amount of ill will in the rest of the world that is only beginning to turn around. Thanks to those sour sentiments towards the America government Americans are now paying through the nose to simply travel to other parts of the world. It's a shame, but there's not much that can be done about it other than avoid traveling or supporting a government with better foreign relations.

On a more humorous note another requirement for traveling to Bolivia is the yellow fever vaccination. I had the shot 8 years ago but didn't have any of the paper work to prove it. The shot last ten years I was almost due for another one and I apparently needed the documentation to travel to Bolivia and Brazil. So after my visit to the Bolivia consulate I went around looking for the vaccination. I went to several hospitals and clinics and none of them had it. Peru had not yet allocated a new shipment the vaccine to most parts of the country. So at the last hospital I visited I asked them what I should do since I was traveling that day. They volunteered to give me the vaccination card with out the vaccine! Hilarious. I didn't even think of trying that, and here they were volunteering to falsify that I had been given my shot. I guess it all about the piece of paper sometimes. So for less than a buck I was out of there with my office yellow fever vaccination card on my way to Bolivia (I would get my visa at the border).









I left that afternoon taking local vans that stopped along a couple town along Lake Titicaca. I was a scenic ride and I ended up stopping in Juli to check out the town and the lake front.












From Juli I caught another couple of vans to make it to the Bolivian border to shell out 135 bucks for the visa and get across the border. From there I was a 10 minute ride away from Copacabana, Bolivia. I stayed there for the night and had a look around the next day before moving on to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.










The 4 hour bus ride from Copacabana to La Paz was interesting. At one point we stopped and the everyone started to get off the bus and the driver said “don't get lost”. I wasn't sure what going on so I got up and asked the driver. I front of us was a body of water with a bunch of large rafts lined up. He motioned that he was driving onto one of the rafts. I asked him about all of us and he started to make a swimming motion then laughed and pointed to the smaller passenger boats. For the next half hour most of the passengers crossed this narrow section of Lake Titicaca by boat while a few others rafted across with the bus. I watched our bus load on then on the other side I got to see other vehicles loading on and off before our bus made it across. Welcome to Bolivia!




















It was a rainy start to my time in La Paz. I loved the city even though it was a jarring place to be. The traffic coming into the city was telling sign of what the the rest of the chaotic city would be like.




Butterflies on the tracks