Rafting on Lake Titicaca to the Uros Islands
Travel Location: South-America,Peru,Puno,Lake-Titicaca
Nov 11, 2009
Because the tourist bus was going to try a “shady” border crossing and didn’t have a definite plan, we thought it would actually be more secure to travel with a local charter bus. As with all of our Bolivian bus rides, the trip itself was eventful. Thankfully it wasn’t stressful on our account.
As we were crossing a usual but random Bolivian checkpoint, the officials came on board and found a UK couple without entry stamps or tourist cards. They had crossed a border by foot and the officials had apparently given them an exit stamp and had conveniently not required them to fill out a tourist card. A typical scam; we were surprised that the couple wasn’t aware of the tourist card requirement. The officials demanded 500 BSB, about 75USD for their “negligence.” Because everyone had tried to get rid of all their Bolivianos, the couple didn’t have enough money and were facing getting stuck at the border alone. Fortunately, we passengers were able to round up enough left over change to satisfy the greedy officials.
The border crossing to Peru was the longest we have faced thus far. The line wrapped around the small border town during the heat of the day. Some of the not-so-smart backpackers had went out drinking the night before and were struggling to not pass out during the 2-3 hour wait. One of our bus passengers was a foreigner (don’t know what country) who was dressed like a “punk” with a Mohawk. I try not to judge people based upon appearance, but one should expect problems trying to cross borders dressed like that. When the kid was confronted with a problem he showed an extremely bad attitude and was kicked out of line. Our bus waited for him for about a half-hour while some of the passengers complained and wanted to continue without him. Fortunately for him, we had a great host who waited for him – personally, I couldn’t believe Peru let him in the country after some of the things he said.
After our long and always adventurous ride from Bolivia, we arrived in Puno, Peru around 3 PM. Puno sits on Lake Titicaca – a fantastic view of the highest navigable lake in the world. Neither of our stomachs was feeling well – apparently Bolivia was getting its last laugh at us! We found a great English-speaking hustler at the airport who negotiated with us for a cheap rate hostel and transfer. He took us to the hostel and we talked about doing an Uros Island tour the following day. He assured us his company could give us a tour and get us back in time for a 1PM bus departure to Cusco. We were still concerned about time; we had to make it to Quito by the 22nd of Nov and we didn’t want to “hang out” in Puno too long. We decided to go for the tour and take it easy for the night. We both had some coca tea provided by the hostel.
We later found out that our Hostel, Hostal Tumi, was supposed to be around 95 Soles but we paid 30 Soles (10USD)…good deal I guess!
Nov 12, 2009
We set alarms for 7:30 AM, woke up, and headed to breakfast. Surprised to find no restaurant open, we discovered the time was actually 6:30AM! We wanted to see the few sights around downtown Puno so we took a few minutes to walk around the Plaza del Armas, a few churches, and the nice streets. Afterwards we decided to pay for the breakfast at the hotel since there was nothing else open. Then we packed at stored our luggage before the tour.
The Uros people lived throughout the Tiwanaku, Incan, Colonial time periods. They didn’t have much involvement with any of the above because they literally live on the lake. The Spanish tried to force them to work in the mines, but they kept to their floating islands and boats. They became excellent at evading the Spanish eyes.
The Uros people did and still construct islands made from reed. They cut off chunks of land, move them out into the lake, and add reed to make the “islands” hospitable. Then they build huts and docks off of the islands. Their transportation consists of canoes and boats made from reed as well. These boats usually have a dragon or serpent head. The construction is so good, that their boats were proven sea worthy to cross the Pacific. They used to eat large fish, but the lake has lost most of its large fish in the past century, so now they eat small fish and shoot birds. We also tried some of the plants they eat provided by the lake as well. They are entirely self-sufficient but like to purchase some goods from the mainland. I imagine they now make plenty of money from tourist revenue. All of the tours give them money and they now sell handicrafts to all of the visiting tourists.
On our tour we met a couple of round-the-world Japanese backpackers who were very funny and we had a good time talking on the way back from the islands. We also met two French cousins traveling through Peru. The man only had three weeks off work because he works for Nissan as strategy and planner for Nissan Europe. We talked a lot about his awesome job and he told me he possibly help finding a job (unfortunately we lost his contact info in our notebook somewhere in Ecuador!)
After the tour, our guides rushed us back to the hostel, grabbed our gear, and made it to the bus station in plenty of time for our departure. We had a quick meal of chicken and rice and were set to go to Cusco and the long-awaited Machu Picchu.
