Way Beyond Blue

After spending a day sleeping, recovering (both from the Inca Trail and a drunken journey home) and drinking Pisco Sours in Cuzco, we journeyed to our final destination in Peru. It's seemed appropriate to finish Peru with another superlative, this time the highest lake in the world, or the largest high altitude lake; Lake Titicaca.

The two days we spent travelling on Lake Titicaca in between our time in Puno, were probably two of our best in Peru. The lake doesn't disappoint. The sun and clear sky are reflected in the glorious, glisteningly blue water, which seems to stretch on forever with just a glimpse of Bolivian mountains in the distance.

Island Taquile was our first stop on the lake, where a traditional Quechua speaking community have lived for thousands of years. They still live a traditional life, relatively untouched by mainland Peru, and are famous for weaving. Men, women and children on the island wear a variety of woollen hats and woven clothes, which denote marital and social status. They also cook fantastic, fresh trout.

The day we arrived was an exciting one; the annual election for community leaders, who run life on the island. It's fair to say that Luke and I probably found this more interesting than our travelling companions. These local elections are not ruled by Peruvian law, so it's not compulsory to vote (as it is in Peruvian regional and national elections) and they don't have to field female candidates - in fact women aren't allowed to stand (in contrast Peruvian law requires political parties to field at least 30% women). Only married men and women are allowed to vote in these election, which takes place in the main square where votes are cast by a show of hands. The married men elected to be leaders for the following year, receive their brightly coloured woolly hats at the end of the electoral process, determining their new status.

The real highlight of the two days was the night we spent with a local family who live on a Peninsula on the Lake. The traditional community are mainly agricultural, and tourism hasn't yet spoilt this tranquil and beautiful place.

Daniel and his wife Juanla came to greet us as we got off the boat, and as they spoke Amara, Quechua and Spanish we managed to get by with our broken Spanish. They had nine children, three of whom still lived at home -Ferdinando, Julio Cesar and Wilfredo and all five of them made us feel unbelievably welcome.

The food was fantastic and cooked, for seven people, in one pot over a fire in the small kitchen, and the manzanillia tea was freshly picked.

While there we played volleyball at the local school - locals versus tourists (its fair to say they kicked our arses) and had a fire with music and cerveza on the beach.

We loved it so much and were actually offended that previous guests in the village had complained so bitterly about the basic accommodation being... well basic. The room we had was clean, warm and comfortable, and using an outdoor toilet for one night is hardly a trauma. Especially when you consider you're staying with people who live like this everyday.

Daniel told us how his wife, who can now only see a few metres, recently had to have an operation on her eyes. As there is no free healthcare in Peru the operation had cost $700 (American). This price seems outrageous to someone who has lived with the benefits of a NHS even before you realise that 70% of those living in rural Peru live below the poverty line. For many this would be more than three months salary.


It makes you realise how lucky we are to have the magnificent free health service we have in the UK, and long may it remain.

Following the fab and very real experience of the peninsula, the experience of going to the reed islands was a more touristy one. That said the floating islands of the Uros people are well worth seeing. The islands are made entirely from reeds and the Uros people have lived on reed islands for around 600 years. They were pleasantly springy to walk on, and I got to eat some reed. What more could you want?

Puno, is described as the perfect base for exploring the lake, and you would be correct in reading that as “there's very little to do there”, what sites it does have (an old British ship) we didn't manage to visit in our two nights there.

That said it was not an unpleasant town, made almost entirely from concrete, it had a wide selection of restaurants and bars aimed at the many tourists on Lima street in the centre. We managed to celebrate our last night in Peru with a good night out in Puno, with several of our fellow travellers. This started in a lovely little pizza restaurant - Pizza & Pasta - a bit off the main drag, was followed by a selection of cocktails (which Luke, Dave and the utterly fabulous Edwin are modelling here) accompanied by a relatively impressive local dance display, including women wearing very little, women dressed as mountains and men dressed as condors.

This was followed by more beer, wine, cocktails and five hours of less traditional dancing in the funky Rock and Reggae Bar on Lima street.

The border crossing over to Bolvia was surprisingly painless, if not slightly bizarre and Bolivia had the friendliest border guard I've personally ever met. The five hour bus journey from Puno to our first Bolivian stop allowed for some spectacular views of Lake Titicaca, including a magnificent sunset.

It's fair to say that this arrival was perhaps the most spectacular thing about the night we spent in the Lake side Bolivian town of Copacobana. Whilst the cold beers and freshly cooked trout I had in a quiet local eatery were excellent and amazingly cheap, I don't think it's an unfair summary to say music and fashion were certainly not the passion. In this Copacobana stray dogs, bad stenches and buildings made of cement seemed to be all the rage.

Following, only one night in this haven, we moved on to capital of Bolivia, La Paz.

I'll finish by saying if you've been disappointed by the length, dryness and down right do gooder nature of some of this blog -please log back in for our next post, which will only include, drunken debauchery, cocktails, silly dancing and the slating on the internet of a truly terrible woman.

Stay warm,

Luke and Louise

Posted by Louise