CARNIVAL ON LAKE TITICACA
Party-time in Puno
As we headed South through Peru, we were very much looking forward to seeing the shores of Lake Titicaca and the traditional cultures that live along its shore. Particularly since we were told to expect a huge party for the carnival which lasts until the second Sunday in February. While we were in Cuzco, we found out that the carnival dates are actually quite flexible, and unfortunately this year it took place a week earlier and end by 7 February, so we would have just missed it. Luckily the people on the lakeside love a good party, so they extended it by a day in Puno, and the unofficial celebrations continued for a couple more days after that!
For the 6-hour bus journey between Cuzco and Puno we spoiled ourselves with a Cruz el Sur bus which is probably of the highest quality and provides the most reliable service. The company has a separate terminal in Cuzco where you can find some of the missing tastes, like a good quality coffee latte (even if at almost European prices). We were then offered breakfast on board and had a very comfortable almost 180-degree reclinable seat which made the journey a lot more comfortable than the collective buses we`ve gotten used to this by now. We also enjoyed some lovely scenery of rolling hills on the way, and met a really cool Korean couple who used to live in the US, but have just retired and are on their way back to Korea with a slight detour (sound familiar to anyone?). We ended up travelling throughout the Titicaca region together on both sides of the border. Most of the people we met in the Andes were either on their way from the North to the South, or vice versa – if you’re travelling in the same direction you can stick together for a couple of days until your paths / itineraries diverge, while if it’s the opposite direction, you can exchange tips about where to stay, what to see and what tour operators to use.
When we arrived in Puno, we found out that the city was in lockdown mode, half the city-centre was closed to make way for the carnival processions. So we rushed to the hotel to put our stuff down and get a glimpse of all the traditional costumes, which were very different from the ones we had seen in the Sacred Valley so far. As our luck would have it, our hotel hadn’t received our reservation, which took some time to sort out. In the meantime, it started pouring rain and I felt my negotiating position slipping through my hands, particularly as the city was fully booked for the last day of the Carnival. With the help of our newly found Korean friends, we did manage to salvage the situation somewhat and get free breakfast, not to mention half-price accommodation for the following night (once the Carnival had ended).
Most hotels in Puno fall into the mid-low category in terms of their value for money, so having a good location can help differentiate one from the other. Our place was greatly situated only 2 streets from the main square, which was the heart of the celebration, but it would have needed a good cleaning and a fix of the roof too, as due to the rain the corridors turned into channels of lakes inside the hotel by the next morning, and the water also reached the storage and soaked all the towels so we had to wait for a hand towel-size towel that someone quickly purchased on the local market for each guest to save the situation. Overall we just laughed at all these inconveniences, in the end you don`t wake up to find a big lake just in front of your door!
The soaking rain turned the roads into rivers of water more than ankle-deep (which is the critical level above which our shoes stop being waterproof anymore). Despite the adversities, our hunger and curiosity drove us to explore the city and then join the party with our new Korean friends. The locals seemed not to notice the rain! Dozens of music bands and groups of colourfully-costumed dancing people with mascaras were marching along the streets - although outside the main procession you could catch glimpses of shivering performers, whose short skirts were, shall we say, more suited to a sunny summer afternoon. The locals were incredibly friendly, lent us their costumes, mascaras and wanted to take pictures with us too, rather than just the other way around!
Titicaca – Peruvian edition
Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable body of water on Earth, at 3812 meters above sea level, and an area of 8312 km2 (about 14 times the size of Lake Balaton in Hungary) which is shared between Peru and Bolivia. (Each country claim to own the largest part of the lake, in fact the two shares seem to be about the same.) In the native Aymara language, the name Titicaca means Puma’s (pronounced “titi”) Rock (“khakha”). Tour guides never fail to explain that “caca” means something completely different in Spanish along with a lot of other European languages, but this is in Aymaran… The lake is considered to be the original birthplace of the Inca rulers so it has a special historical significance. The rock, the specific birthplace itself, is located on Isla del Sol on the Bolivian side of the lake (more on that later), but there is plenty to see in Peru too, primarily the Uros islands and Taquile island, to which we took a day-trip. The journey itself was a shockingly cheap 40 soles (around 8 GBP), including hostel pick-up and drop-off, 3-hour boat transportation each way, a bilingual guide and entrance tickets to both islands – I guess this just goes to show how cheap Peru can be if you get away from the tourist hotspots (e.g. Cuzco).
The Uros islands are a fascinating place, where the indigenous people live on small floating islands made of reeds, one for each extended family of 20-30 people, with a total of 87 floating islands packed close together. The islands were originally created when some of the Aymara living around the lake didn’t want to accept the authority of the Inca Empire that had conquered them, and decided to escape and put their houses on their reed boats and move to the centre of the lake. Eventually the boats morphed into more permanent floating islands, and are now UNESCO World Heritage sites.
We docked at one of them, and were given an explanation of how the islands were constructed, and how nearly everything they make uses some part of the reeds that grow around the lake. We were even given the chance to take a short journey on the “Mercedes Benz of reed boats” (their words, not mine), but we politely declined as the wind and rain had restarted, and the open-air Mercedes Benz looked like a recipe for a week in bed (and Puno wouldn’t have been a nice place to spend it). The islands weren’t completely untouched by technology, as they were given solar panels when Alberto Fujimori visited some years ago (we were told the only Peruvian president to ever visit the islands); which was an incredible improvement for their lives because dry reeds and candles don’t go very well together. Sanitation however is still a mostly unknown concept, as people dump their waste into the same lake that they end up drinking their (untreated) water from. We later met an American engineer in La Paz who heads an NGO to develop drinking water and sanitation in rural areas, and who confirmed how bad the situation is throughout the whole countryside – It’s a quadruple burden, since the easily avoidable illnesses 1) cause an immediate loss of income to the family, 2) lead to long-term health problems, 3) result in an extra burden on the rudimentary healthcare system, and 4) hurt the long-term development potential of the country due to sick children missing school (or even dying in worst cases).
After leaving the Uros islands, we headed for Taquile with our boat, which is the largest island on the lake on the Peruvian side and offers a fantastic view over the lake. Luckily the weather improved significantly, and we went up on the “sun-deck” of the boat to soak up some solar energy and enjoy the incredibly blue colours of the lake. Besides its scenery, Taquile is famous for its knitting men (also a listed UNESCO Cultural heritage item) who have been creating handicraft for centuries.
We were given an explanation of what the different pieces of knitwear mean, for example: If you see someone walking around with a knitted hat with ear mufflers AND wearing a leather cowboy hat, it either means the person has incredibly bad taste, or he is a figure of authority on Taquile. Also, men traditionally wear what I can only call a sleeping cap during the day – for single men it is half red, half white, while after marriage they exchange it for a pink one. Renata says it’s meant to symbolize the colour women bring into men’s’ lives – I think its purpose is to make the wearer look so ridiculous no woman would ever take him seriously any more!
After returning from the lake we headed with our Korean friends to one of the best restaurants in Puno, the Balcones de Puno, with live music and a folk dance show each night. It`s a 2-hour show that demonstrates many traditional instruments, songs and dances so it was a good chance to see some of what we had missed out from the carnival due to the rain the day before. The place also gave us the chance to try some of the highlight recipes of the Bolivian quisine – the long-awaited guinea pig and some other creative combinations of yucca, chicken and local souces.
The Original Copacabana: Titicaca - Bolivian Edition
After Puno, our next stop was the Bolivian side of the lake, at the backpacker town of Copacabana. If the name sounds familiar, conjuring up images of a beachfront, it isn’t a coincidence: while the Bolivian Copacabana isn’t a large city, it is a famous pilgrimage centre, and a number of small chapels were built throughout the continent in its honour, including on a sunny Brazilian beach. It seems some people might have confused the two locations too, as this original Bolivian Copacabana is also full of South American hippies who decided to make this their temporary new home, and to support themselves they work as waiters or as receptionists.
Our 3.5-hour journey to Copacabana from Puno met with an unfortunate glitch at the very first step: we were told our bus would be delayed 20 minutes since the crowds over the festival had depleted the gas at the petrol station. At this point we were only slightly annoyed, as we had already learned that basic organization skills aren’t a particular strong point in South America (the festival and the crowds must have taken everyone by surprise…). Two hours later (we were told the bus would leave in “10 minutes for sure this time” at least 5-6 different times), our bus finally showed up and we got on our way. Crossing the border was relatively simple and consisted of the usual: everyone gets off the bus, stands in the line to clear Peruvian immigration, walks across the border and stands in a line with the same people to clear Bolivian immigration.
From Copacabana, we spent another day exploring the lake, this time the aforementioned Isla del Sol on the Bolivian side. Our boat crossed the 12km to the Northern side of the island in a speedy 2.5 hours. Our plan was to visit the ancient Inca ruins (including the supposedly famous, but not at all impressive Puma’s Rock), and then to cross the island walking along the central mountain ridge to the Southern port. It was a demanding hike, at an altitude of 3800 meters and with very strong sun, so we just made it back in 4.5 hours to our last boat (we were told it was a 2.5-3 hour hike). We were lucky with the weather, so were treated to some amazing views of the different mountains and lagoons along the lake. Overall, I thought it was nicer than Taquile, but it would have been even better if we had some more time to relax and have a fruit juice along the way. Visitors should know that all three villages you cross will collect their own ‘entrance fee’ to enable you to continue (it’s only 1-2 USD each, so really only a nuisance that they can’t coordinate to collect a single entrance fee to the island).
Our next step from the lake was to reach La Paz, the starting point of our upcoming adventures. We also left Copacabana with the hope to be a bit luckier with food, as over the couple of days we spent here we only had the chance to eat well once, the last morning for breakfast (well, scrambled eggs are relatively easy to make), all the other meals we had lacked taste or the actual content (a 5 cm piece of chewy beef per person didn`t prove to be adequate for dinner, a burrito without rice, guacamole or bean felt like a shame on the Mexican cuisine, and a piece of chicken that even a street dog refused seemed like a good choice to leave on the plate.)