Menos Caca..

Titicaca was angry today, I literally had a few minutes in which thought I was going to die. But let me back up... We made it to puno, on the lake without trouble- thought that the roadblocks by striking miners would keep us (see pictures), but they gave us a break. The lake town of puno was fairly unimpressive, and our hotel was right over the loud street and bedbugs kept us up all night. We got ourselves booked on an island tour the next day, to see the floating islands of uros, and the stationary island of Taquile.

The first were the floating islands where Aymara speaking indians moved hundred of years ago to escape first the incas, then to escape the spanish they moved further out. They are essentially huge rafts woven of woven reeds kinda like the movie waterworld. Sounds amazing, I know, but I dont think I´m too jaded here to say that with many tourists, and one horrible family that kept grabbing the kids and taking pictures with them and even just marching right the families´ reed huts it was a little exploitive feeling. I just wanted to scream ¨They´re not dolls!!¨ if I had spoken Hebrew. The indians all were selling artisan crafts and such, and even put on a song and dance that really felt a bit like a shuck and jive routine. The whole thing left me feeling a little icky, even though it was fascinating to see.

We then headed further out into lake Titicaca to see the next island, Taquile, which also is mostly Aymara speaking, a little spanish and no english. The two hour boatride was beautiful on the way out, a little rain and clouds, and we could see the snow capped peaks of bolivia coming into view over the water. The immense sky and ever changing clouds made the water change from dark black to bright white to shadfes of blue and green in between, with the water texture changing from perfectly flat to whitecapped,m and of course the hills and mountains rising in the distance, when you could even see land. We arrived at the island, essentially a mini mountain and hiked way up these ancient incan paved roads, through grassy terracesa with grazing sheep, and men and women all wearing traditional bright clothing that was sort of half spanish half indian. We had lunch and the usual guide explanations about the local food and the symbolism of the traditional clothing and other cultural traditions, changed slighlty with the arrival of the spanish, and little again thereafter.


We ambled around a little, then back down the trails to the docks as a storm was hitting, rare for this time of year. We arrive just in time to see the waves crashing two boats into each other, shattering the windshield and side windows on our boat. Too dangerous to board on that side of the island, our guide sent us back up over mountain to go to the other port, as fast as possilbe to leave by 4 when we could get navigation help. We hiked over, getting an even better view of the island and lake, down through terraces and old archways that felt almost mediterranean and onto our boat. We were forced to leave five of the party behind in order to leave by 4 o clock, and took on a few people who were trying to get off the island. Halfway through the boat journey the storms kicked up again, blacking out the sky and suddenly lightning and thunder, with lightning coming terrifyingly close to the boat. All I could think of was remembering to never be out on open water in a storm, especially in a tiny metal boat. Next thing I know we start hearing a staccato ratatat (not the band), and realize that it is hailing, a few inches accumulating on the bow and stern of our boat as a Colombian woman exclaimed "es una locura!" Bear in mind the lack of windshield and broken windows, no lights on the boat, and I´m not a big worrier, but am literally imagining a story buried in the back of a newpspaper about a boat sinking in lake titicaca, a few american aboard and presumed drowned-electrocuted. Does anyone have my name in town, how would my family and loves find out. Thank god the lightning cleared up, and at leat we made it into port even if it took six hours. Had mediocre pizza for dinner at the creatively named machu pizza and straight to bed.


This morning into Bolivia easily, in spite of having to bribe the busdriver to let me get my backpack out from under the bus to get my passpòrt. Seems its fairly common, he even gave me change for my bribe! Bolivia greeted us with more snow and sleet at the crossing, but we are safely here and I write this after a six hour power outage, during which we played scrabble and backgamman at a cozy cafe. The place was run by a colombian woman who had a giant poster of Pablo Escobar, and was lecturing her staff about left wing activism, globalization great to see politics so passionate somewhere. The rest of the town of Copacabana was charming, an amzing cathedral of moorsih design, bright white with colored tiles and somewhat incongruous in the snowy mountains of Bolivia. Inside the church a stunning solid gold and silver altar, the better to really wow the natives I suppose the Spanish were thinking, and outside they were blessing peoples cars with flowers and incence. Titicaca is for prettier on this side, great views of Isla Del Sol, birthplace of the sun in Incan legend, and a landscape that reminds me oddly of Montana. Tomorrow onto La Paz, highest capital in the world...


Pics of Taquile, roadblocks, titicaca