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Jesus and Mohammed Went to Sea in a Beautiful Pea Green Boat
We set off from Puno by bus and after about 2 hours arrived at the Bolivian border, where we had to undergo the usual formalities. Or so we thought. After queuing to see the police, and then the immigration people, we went to change some money. When we came out of the office, we were herded by more police into an interview room and had all our bags searched (and sniffed, he he kulaks) for drugs. We were both quite scared at first, but generally didn't understand what was going on and were dismissed. We clambered back on the bus and were soon on our way again to Copacabana, which we reached in about an hour.
Copacabana is a lovely and touristy town, with lots of restaurants offering 3 course meals for 50p (steak and trout for Charlie, omlette for Lisa). We tried out lots of different restaurants while we were there, and stumbled on a particular gem. It was run by a lady who looked although she had received one chromosome too many and didn't deal very well with customer questions. When she gave us the menus, she collapsed on our table with her head in her arms and her upper body on the tablecloth. Later she recovered herself, with no explanation, and when we questioned her about an item on the menu, she collapsed again. Giggling fits failed to be constrained. Frequent uncontrllable outbursts followed whenever she approached our table.
A neighboring restaurant also had a similar spaz working there, who failed to take orders correctly, having to ask three thousand times what we wanted, and quoting the wrong prices.
For the first three days we just lay in bed. Reading. The room was only costing us 60p each, so we didn't feel in any rush to move on. After this laziness, we decided to punish ourselves by going on a long walk along Lake Titicaca. On the way, we encountered a slight hill. Lisa complained of feeling sick and retched twice. Oh no, is it altitude sickness? Turns out she was just hungry, and after consuming an apple was ready to go again!
We walked for about 3 hours, going through some really beautiful scenery. We started out when the sun was shining, and reached our turning back point when it was hailing really hard on us. By this point, we had been walking for 3 hours and were hoping to be able to hitch a ride back into town. However there were no returning vehicles along the dirt road so we had to settle ourselves into walking back, soaked to the skin.
Soon after we began our return journey, Lisa complained of feeling sick again. Although no retching occurred this time, a lemon sweet was administered STAT and she made a miraculous recovery.
On the trek back, a kulak family approached us and asked if we would take their picture. At least this is what we thought they asked. We said Si! and before we knew it, their kids were bundled in front of us and we were being photographed with them. Stunned, Lisa recovered some decorum and asked if they would like us to take their picture, as a family, for them. However this too was misinterpretated, and as soon as the camera was handed to Lisa, they all crowded round Charlie (who was trapped on a rock) and we all posed again. Kulaks!
Isla del Sol
We had looked around a few of the travel agencies and found that they all had the same tour for exactly the same price. So when we finally moved our posteriors from the beds we booked the tour with the closest travel agency with someone sat inside. Little did we realise that ‘Titicaca Tours’ would have the slowest boats known to man.
We found the boat after having a relaxed breakfast and waited on the shore until more tourists arrived. Once they had arrived we went onto the boat that had broken windows and very uncomfortable wooden chairs. These were made more uncomfortable by the two hour journey, which was almost the time it took us to walk. We hoped it was because they were wanting to save fuel for the environment’s sake.
Just a small aside about a Navy in a land locked country:
We set off from the bay that was filled with lots and lots of peddalos, apparently they are for all the excited Bolivians that don’t get to see the sea and so get very excited by this large body of freshwater. The Navy are equally passionate about the small amount of water they can access. Bolivia once had a coast but it was taken by Chile and they are still bitter. We heard the Navy boys marching around the streets shouting like American troops, they certainly don’t know the meaning of stealth! They were all lined up on the morning of our trip for inspection but instead of having any ships, or even boats, they only had peddalos. On out return journey the peddalos had been put to the good use of clothes racks. Really a Bolivian Navy– What were they thinking?
On the route to the island we got bored and uncomfortable but Lisa saw two shapes that looked like people walking on water. Charlie thus Christened them Jesus and Mohammed. Mohammed made the best progress and Jesus was left flagging behind. They were actually two small sail boats but they provided the entire entertainment for the journey.
The Walk
We had decided to not walk the island incase it turned out to be like the walk we completed the day before and out lazy limbs still ached. Unfortunately our lack of spanish led us to have to do the walk from the North to the South or be left on the island. So we set off ignoring the rest of our group who went to visit an Incan Ruin (Not our cup of tea, thanks!). So we headed down a lovely rocky path that went past cliffs and through ravines, up and down hills. We finally reached midway point and decided to eat our paked lunch of bananas and rolls. We fed the remains to the local pig community and thus had no waste at all, and made the pigs very happy indeed. Having left the path to eat snacks at the end of a pier we could not longer find the way. We scaled walls and clamboured along wire fences avoiding lakes in the middle of the fields. Finally we found a small path, which looked a little bit too grassy to be walked every day by tourists, but we followed it all the same. The path led uphill past and around the terracing laid down by Incans to grow things. Anyway the path got narrower and wended its way in the wrong direction. We finally scrambled through a field and got to the top of a hill, we could see the real path on the side of a hill, miles to our left. At the top of the hill there were four sheep kept in the usual kulak manner of tying a rope to one of their legs and attaching it to a stake in the ground. They build fences around football fields but not around normal fields! The poor sheep were frightened to death of the two giant white monkeys and tried to run in every direction but couldn’t extract themselves from the leg tie. Thinking we would be found out by kulaks and shouted at for scaring the sheep we tried to make a plan. It was too late, a stooped old mummy like granjad had spotted us. Instead of apologising we asked him where the path to the south was, and he was smiley and helpful, as if all tourists go rambling across his farm land. We found a new path to the south and finally got to the town at the end. We stopped to pet donkeys on the way and keep checking with the locals that we were on the right route. We even managed to take the wrong route from the town to the dock! We arrived before our very slow boat, which was full of the lazy people that couldn’t be bothered to walk the three our path.
On the last day, we went to an outdoor cafe to use their book exchange. Suddenly, Charlie spooted something furry and realised it was a little monkey - a pet! Sadly it had a piece of string tied around its waist to stop it escaping, and looked quite bored. So Charlie went and played with it. Gingerly, a peace offering of a small leaf was given to the monkey, who grabbed it greedily out of Charlie's giant hands. Then a finger was offered, which the monkey gripped onto with its tiny furry hands. Then the monkey went crazy and climbed up Charlie's arm, wrapping himself around his arm and swinging. Playtime was called. The monkey then swung on its rope and tried to launch itself at Charlie again, who then realised that his glasses and cap were in grave danger. So after a few friendly nibbles (from the monkey) we said goodbye.
Final Thoughts: Copacabana is an amazingly cheap town but it needs to work on its internet prices. Isla del Sol could be improved with the odd signpost here and there, to prevent sheep deaths. The path to Yampupata needs to be removed from all guide books and especially reviewed by those using the word amazing! And Finally three cheers for the Bolivian Navy......
Mark out of 10: 6.5
Next Time............... La Paz
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