From Cusco to La Paz in Bolivia

 (Dad in black, Jo in red).

Saturday 7 May – Cusco to Puno. We are getting used to these long bus rides now so it’s up early and after the breakfast of the usual juice, banana, white bread and jam, coffee and tea it’s off to the bus station to catch a local bus for the 7 hour trip to Puno. It’s worthwhile commenting here on the organisation and effectiveness of the Intrepid guide, Hilda. She was very efficient in briefing us on each days plans and activities, we always had transport arrive exactly on time with no stuff ups. She would always be on hand to help anyone with the little things that crop up. Before this trip my thoughts about “local bus” were based on my experiences in South America 11 years ago and Nepal / India 9 years ago. Peru especially has come a long way. These buses are better than you’re typical NZ Air flight to Wellington, better seats, more legroom and overall very comfortable, you may get hostess services with a snack and a coffee of sorts (first day home I’m off to my local cafe for a large latte and me a soy double flat white and grainy Burgen bread!).

On the road to Puno we were once again reminded about the vastness of this country, hour after hour of desolate high country with the occasional town. The dry season here means “Dry.” I have been mesmerised by the landscape since we got here, the first bus we got on back in Lima, I videoed out the video constantly. It is so interesting how far this landscape goes, how it changes as we travel and the people and things we see on the side of the road.

We passed through Luliaca which was considered not a place to spend an afternoon. Its location close to Bolivia and Lake Titicaca meant it was a hive of black market activity especially in fuel as price of fuel in Bolivia is much lower than Peru. It was explained that because of general corruption in Peru and Bolivia this black market is tolerated. I will attempt to set the scene out the window; teenagers playing pool in the middle of the median strip, elderly dribbling ladies begging outside the bus, people on the side of the road with contraband barrel of petrol and diesel and millions of mangy dogs roaming the street like the own the show. Funniest being the toilet signs where we stopped, someone thought they would get creative. A painting of a traditional lady squatting with a puddle below her skirt. Totally becoming! :s

Impressions of Puno as we entered the city were confirmed after a city orientation walking tour. Don’t put it on your list of Peru highlights when planning a trip.  This was to be our base for our two night three day tour /home stays in the Lake Titicaca area.  Early evening we had a group briefing by Hilda and it was explained that there was about to be a major strike in protest against the government mining concessions to large companies. The most effective strike in Peru is to block transport so it was likely that on Monday when the strike started there would be no busses on the roads and they had no idea if the strike would last for two days or two weeks.  Hence Intrepid had decided it was best to ship us all direct to La Paz in Bolivia on Sunday afternoon / evening.  The plan would mean that our Lake Titicaca experience would be cut back to a morning tour on Sunday.  We all had to agree and on reflection most of us wondered about the value of two night’s home stay at Lake Titicaca anyway. I was quite looking forward to the home stay; I have really enjoyed our community interaction through the trip. We now had to think about what we would do with three extra days in Bolivia. Puno is the centre of cultural activities e.g. dancing. So Hilda booked us a restaurant with a live dancing show. We saw dances from all the different regions of Peru. The dancing was spectacular. One of the boys from our group was chosen to dance with one of the short skirted women, he did us proud. We all were falling off our chairs laughing. The poor waiter was working to a very packed room and over the period of the evening we managed to receive many free drinks due to botch ups he had made. We were all rather cheery by the end of the evening!

Sunday 8 May – An early morning start taken in bicycle two person rickshaws down to the port was great fun. It was more than fun, Anita and I had an intensive competition with two of the boys’ rickshaws. I was yelling ‘raaaaapido!’ to communicate with the rickshaw driver; he sure deserved his tip at the end. Boarded a boat and off to the very unique reed island settlements on Lake Titicaca. The exact date when these remarkable settlements started or why they started is a bit of an unknown. They have been around for some time. We only visit a small collection of these manmade islands and now days the whole existence of this group was to entertain and extract a living from tourists. We landed on one reed island and were give a introduction to the construction and way of life. They had a pet owl that looked just like the one from Harry Potter, a very inquisitive fellow that jumped on our boat and had a good look around. A number of families on each island and the base is about 1.5 to 2m deep of read root mass topped with layers of dried reeds. Houses have reed walls and reed or corrugated iron roofs and most have raised wooden floors. The surface is constantly re surfaced with reeds and houses are lifted up and moved to accommodate this process. Once the general introduction to the way of life was over it was onto the “hard sell” We were split up and escorted to view houses (more like a room) and were encouraged to don local dress. Jo and I did look a comical pair. In the end I did purchase a couple of small jars (to add to the 100’s Sue already has at home). When we were looking in their one roomed house they described how their whole family of six slept in the same room and they were most proud of their solar powered television. The 14 year old girl spoke very good English.

Now it was time to take an optional trip to the other reed island on a reed boat which had quite remarkable boat construction. Now is when we decided that this touristy think had gone too far – they lined the bank and as we pulled away they sang a song in Spanish, Quechua, Aymara (the two indigenous languages) and then ‘My bonnie lies over the ocean’ in English.  On the boat we climbed up and sat on the raised viewing deck. After about 60 sec two small boys were ushered up the ladder and proceeded to entertain us with “winkle winkle little star”! (Yes I mean winkle not twinkle) followed by Frerajarka they had all the languages covered. With the timing just right the cap came off the five year olds head and was passed around for the mandatory collection. The littlest boy got a splinter in his foot half way through and wanted to go down to his dad, but the older brother was pulling him back up the stairs as if to say ‘don’t leave me with these scary grinos’. (Grino is the Spanish word for tourist. Once back down the ladder the money was immediately passed to dad and shared between the adults on the boat.  Although you would not want to miss the reed islands the sad effect that they only way these days they can make a living via tourists makes it have a certain amount of contradiction.

On a positive note, we did see on the second island a young couple who had opted for a two night experience of living on the reed island. A total chill out experience with early morning fishing to catch lunch and weaving a basket. This seemed like a great experience and we have suggested it to other travellers we have met heading to Lake Titikaka. The people from this island seemed a lot more down to earth and less desperate to sell they had a beautiful garden in the middle of their island which housed pet flamingos.

One advantage of living this way – If you had a family dispute you just cut the island in half and floated away.  I just had to ask – what happened to the dead? And just how did they deal with waste? There was a project trying to introduce a chemical toilet into each of the communities. Our tour guide informed us that they took turns between the north and south islands alternate days in order to share the tourists around the communities.

The Border Crossing

After lunch we headed for the local bus station for our 3.30pm departure to Bolivia. But we did have some time to buy some dinner for the bus ride. Dad headed off in one direction and bought a sandwich. Anita and I went on a mission to buy carrot cake (I had ordered a carrot cake at the Puno dancing restaurant and received a marble cake). After much searching (everything is closed on a Sunday due to everyone being heavily catholic) we found lemon meringue pie, pesto pasta and bruchetta. We had the best dinner on the bus! The trip was quite an experience. It was decided to go via the border and then to Coco cabaña (Bolivia) and this involved a short crossing of the lake. Let’s start with the border. It goes like this. The bus will stop, you all get out, go to the police check point and get a stamp, then proceed next door to Peru immigration to get a exit stamp. The bus will travel up the road (over no mans land) and deposit bags just outside the barrier to Bolivia. To set the scene we need to explain it is now dark and a large number of people have arrived from Bolivia to gain aces to Peru. The Bolivian border entrance office closes in 45 min! There is only one queue in the Peru Immigration office and only one man serving. We need to desperately get our stamp so we can run up the no mans land, collect our bag and enter Bolivia before the office closes at 8pm. The hundreds of people coming into Peru don’t think it is fair that we push to front of the queue!  This is complicated by the fact that some of our group has already managed to get their stamp and move across to Bolivia.  This is when having a feisty young Peruvian female as your guide helps heaps, All 4’-9” of Hilda gets stuck in and pushes us forward while arguing with the people in the queue (in Spanish and English) and encouraging the guy behind the counter that ours should be looked after first!  One by one we managed to get processed and then run up the road (in the dark) to the shouts of our friends on the other side of the border – hurry hurry – the office is about to close. I had to throw my bag at the bus, place our lemon meringue carefully then run to the desk! There was quite a steep hill between Peru and Bolivia! Just what would we do if two of us were left in no mans land on a cold night!!  After much stress we got the last person across with those speak Spanish encouraging the loan guy in the Bolivian Immigration that it was OK to wait another view minutes for the last few.  After it was all over and we were all on the Bolivia bus we did wonder if this was just all a big joke for the guy in the Bolivian office and was his way of relieving the boredom of sitting in a little remote border crossing office stamping passports. This type of thing just make travel more interesting.

Now it needs to be said that now we are in Bolivia the standards are not quite the same as Peru. The Bolivian bus is quite basic and one starts to wonder about safety after we have raced around a few curvy corners. On to the lake crossing: Its now too late to do the official crossing involving us all getting off this basic bus and taking a passenger ferry while the bus crosses on what can be called a rickety raft.  We are instructed to stay on the bus and close all curtains. Much to our amazement the bus proceeds to drive onto the rickety raft with us on board and off we go for a 20 min crossing of the lake. We were told the Bolivian navy were present on the lake and that we must all be very quiet as if caught it would be back to the start of the late trip and a wait for the morning to cross. This was very amusing for Anita in our group who is a Lieutenant Commander in the Australian Navy who wonders why a land locked country like Bolivia has a Navy!

Drama over we relax and try to sleep for the final couple of hours into La Paz. Arriving about 11pm we are all ready to drop into bed and see what this country and interesting city has to offer.