On the road to Peru

On the rocky ride to Puno in Peru the bus driver's assistant persuaded us and another couple to look at his 'excellent' hostel in Puno. He offered us free transport from the bus station so we thought we should at least take a look. Once there we soon realised this place was awful. Something akin to a horror movie. At the very least the toilet should have a seat surely! We declined, even when they reduced the room price to 4quid a night. I'd rather pay quadrouple and be in a nicer place. And a nicer place we found just round the corner.
First impressions of Puno are bad. The potholed road into town has unfinished buildings either side. In fact nearly every building in Puno has an unfinished look about. Large metal rebar poking from the top of every roof. We later discover this is a tax dodge. If you have a finished house you pay more tax, therefore no-one does and the place looks crappy because of it.
Puno is a couple of hours down the road from Copacabana in Bolivia and also beside Lake Titicaca. It's not right on the lake's edge as there's a inlet full of reeds nearer to town. It's a much bigger place than Copacabana and instantly you can tell the people are far more friendly. It's more geared up to tourists but that just means it's better for us. The saving grace of Puno is the one pedestrianised street it has and a couple of nice Plazas. There's a raft of rustic and funky looking restaurants to choose from, which at least gives us some options in the evening.
Pizzas seem to be very popular in Peru. Most places have a traditional wood burning pizza oven and they taste pretty good as a result. I had to give the local delicacy, Alpaca meat, a try. It was pretty damn fine too. Alpacas are similar to Llamas but have subtle differences. Their hair is finer and used to make blankets, scarfs, hats, jumpers and so on. Every third shop here is selling some kind of Alpaca item or multicoloured poncho.
Another food favourite is Cuy. A guy next to us at a restaurant ordered fried cuy and looked a bit set a back when it arrived. The two girls he was with seemed close to being sick. This is because Cuy is Guinea Pig. Not too bad if it comes in pieces but no. This beast is served whole, sliced down the middle and spread eagled on your plate. It took him a good hour to pick the meat off. That's one thing I think I'll avoid.
After recently celebrating Puno day the celebrations still continue a week later with the odd procession here and there. A live band also play in the square but it's absolutely freezing at night here so watching them for longer than a minute was tough.
The main attraction for tourists here is to go out by boat and visit the floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca. These are man-made islands that people live on that float around the lake. The people of the islands have to constantly replenish the reed on top as the bottom of the island disintegrates. You can even stay with a family on the island too. I didn't fancy the whole thing. We'd heard it was created mainly for the tourists and to be honest I wasn't that interested.
We do decide to stop 3 nights and do nothing but eat, drink and get on the internet. It sounds like a waste but in fact it was pretty good. To not do much for a few days is something we haven't really done on the whole trip.
Whilst sat on the square drinking a bottle of Inca Kola we were surrounded by 20 or so kids, no older than 10. They asked us loads of questions, mainly in Spanish, and just generally liked to stare at us. At one point one of them snatched my cap and every single one of them felt my hair at the same time declaring, 'Gringo!'. It was pretty funny. The people here are far more welcoming than Bolivia and it seems that they've realised how huge an industry tourism can be. It works too. I'd much rather spend my money where the people are friendly rather than a place where I don't feel welcome.
At least I feel a bit better about Peru. Time to move on to Cusco. The old Inka capital of South America. The navel of the world, as it is called. We'd heard very good things about it but we didn't want to expect too much.

Titicacacacaca

Two and a half hours in a small combi van to Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca felt like much longer. The driver constantly beeps his horn and pulls over, letting yet more people on the bus all the way there. There are some stunning views of the bluer than blue lake. The roads vary from smooth to massively rutted and most of the towns we pass are adobe(mud) bricked and uninviting. It looks like a tough life here. The altitude is bad enough but even growing things seems tough, potatoes being the main crop. In La Paz we even saw a woman in traditional dress working on a construction site with a hard hat on. The women seem to have it very tough and are hardened because of it. They always seem to be lugging something way too heavy about.
Out into the wilderness we go and it's mainly scrubland high up on the Altiplano(the high plain) with surrounding jagged mountains set aback.
Lake Titicaca is huge, we drive looking down onto it for about an hour before the road ends at a rickety jetty. Everyone gets off the bus to board a nearby small boat to cross the lake. Luckily we had some cash on us, although we did wipe the guy at the toll booth completely out of change. The bus goes on a seperate ramshackle wooden raft, later we find out this is because not to long back a whole bus load of people went down into the lake trapped inside. Anyway, the 10 minutes crossing was fine although very choppy. This lake is more like a sea.
After increasing the pace on much windier roads we drop down to the shore of the lake and the small town of Copacabana. It's about 10 blocks of houses, shops, restaurants and hostels tucked inbetween two sizeable peaks next to the lake. It sounds idillic. It isn't. The main square is nice enough, clearly all the town's money is in the church.
Our hostel is pretty good though and offers great views of the lake and down onto town. Just a shame the town isn't too great.
It's fairly expensive in comparison to La Paz and no haggling can be had. Everything is the same price from shop to shop. It's like a tourist conspiracy. Everyone's pretty miserable here and also seem to despise dealing with the many tourists who visit. The next 3 days turn out to feel like a long time.
The church is indeed where the money is. Huge golden edificies and monuments to christ adorn the interior. It's gawdy and lords it over the rest of the town, no pun intended. They're even asking for donations to build a large stone pillar outside. They need $67,000 and already have $4,000. I don't know how big the pillar will be but it seems a touch expensive and pointless.
It's mainly just catholic madness all over, including the hilarious painting of christ arising from Lake Titicaca to the welcoming Bolivians. As a side note this is also supposed to be the spot in which the great Inka gods arrived.
During the day everything stops here. Nothing much was happening anyway but what ever was going on stops. Including the electricity. You can't get hot food and if you do it's very suspect.
The main reason for visiting this end of the earth place is to get the boat to the Isla del Sol on the lake. We tried to get the ferry over one day but soon realised our clocks were wrong and had literally missed the boat. Ah well, we hang around doing nothing until the evening when we eat at the best restaurant in town, above our room. It's ok stuff with the addition of some jesus looking guitar player to add to the mood.
Before that we ascend the steep hill next to our hostel to watch the sunset. It's mighty cold once the sun dips and no where near as good looking as a lake in New Zealand, for instance. The ascent is bloody hard work too as the altitude is a real killler. Atop there's small ovens for some ceremony or other and this clearly used to be an important Inka site as it's now covered with plenty of crosses and little Spanish catholic altars. The catholics just wiped out and built atop anything relating to the Inka's somewhat pagan earth beliefs so the locals would be converted. Pretty much the same as England and most of the world really.
Next day we make it to the island after a 2 and a half hour painfully slow boat ride. We check out some crummy Inka ruins that look fake and then head from north to south to make it back to the boat in 3 hours. Walking anywhere is difficult so we knew this would be a killer. The views were tremendous and a far cry from the mainland. It's a nice looking island with little beaches and coves, although the water is freezing. The sun up here is another deadly beast. At this height even on an overcast day you get fried, and I did badly burn my face like never before. Oh good. Still, when you think of Bolivia, if you ever do, a place like this isn't what springs to mind. It does look good. Near the harbour small girls try and get you to take photos of them with the Llamas and Alpacas they're pulling about. 'Photo!', they shout. Quite funny but also a little sad. You can stay overnight here but I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. Back to the mainland we go, frazzled and still altitude bemused. I still wonder why I'm in Bolivia. Other people we chat to love it though. 'It's really cheap', they keep saying. So's Afgahnistan but there's no way I'm booking the next British Airways flight over there. Frickin loons.
In it's defence Bolivia is a diverse country. It's also massive. The same size as France and Spain combined. It has deserts, high plains, a bit of jungle, huge salt flats and the odd city. And for some reason people love visiting the gold mines too. I can't wait to leave. Maybe I hadn't given Bolivia a chance, a few days was enough I thought. Especially when there's soo many other better places. Either the locals seem to hate you or they pretend to like you for cash. Even the kids, as young as 3 or 4, are trained to say 'Propina' (tip) to you. It's annoying all round. I didn't really want to go to Peru after seeing Lima either but I knew we had to give that a proper go.
I wish I was in Argentina. But still, another day another country and everything may turn around.