Lake Titicaca Area

Click on the Photo to see the Whole Titicaca Set.

From Cuzco, I headed south with Clemencia to Puno. Puno is on the shores of the highest navegable lake in the world...the lake that every giggly kid learns the name of early and never forgets. Titicaca. Many of the photos in the Andean Everyday Life Set were taken by Clemencia on that bus trip.

Puno was a non-descript, dirty city with no real redeeming value other than being on the shore of Titicaca. From there, I took a tour of the Uros Islands and Taquile Island. The Uros are floating islands made from reeds. It`s quite incredible. The Uros people live on these tiny man-made floating habitats...almost like human lilipads. Everything, including their boats, are made from tightly woven reeds. When I asked why they don`t put some sort of sealant on their reed boats so they last more than a year, they told me that wouldn`t be in line with tradition...late adapters; could be a while before wireless internet finds the Uros people. The amazing thing is that when they have a disagreement, instead of fighting, they litterally cut the island in half, pull up anchor and resettle 50 yards away. 7th Day Adventists over there, Catholics over here, Mormons...where`s the mormons?? Over the water, off limits for missionaries I guess.

From there we went to visit the Island of Taquile. This place was pretty cool, if you like tourist traps. The Island was actually very pretty and the the stone pathways and climate made it seem like you were in the Italian countryside...or at least how I imagine the italian countryside to be. The men in this town are always walking around knitting caps. The white caps are for single guys and the multicolored one means he`s off limits. In one picture, I`m with an old dude and a japanese girl. Don Pedro and I were joking around having a good time...Clemencia took a picture and he charged her 50 cents! haha. The archway lookout points on the way down were very cool as well.

From Puno, we headed to Copacabana...where music and passion are always the fashion. Actually, Barry Manilow would have been bored of this Copacabana even before Lola and Tony`s tragedy occurred. It`s a very small place, with a pretty church, some artisans, good trout and daily tours of the Island of the Sun. We went on a half day tour, which was a mistake, because the Island was very cool. We should have stayed the night out there and seen the sunrise, but cheapness prevailed and we spent the evening walking around Copacabana, going back and forth between the two bars in town, trying to decide which was less dead. The Island of the Sun is where the Aymara and Quechua people believe that the Sun was Born. That`s just silly. I`m all for respecting old legends, etc....they`re even interesting sometimes. But while here, I came to the realization that most of them are just silly...the Sun was born out of Lake Titicaca??? come on people.

Lake Titicaca itself is very pretty. It`s a very beautiful color and seems quite clean...if it weren`t garunteed to cause hypothermia, I would have liked to swim in it.