Lakes and Rivers - Bolivia

Lake Titicaca - Puno

We caught a night bus to Puno, Lake Titicaca after leaving Cusco. The bus was comfortable, and I slept very well until about 5.15am when our bus fell into a ditch in the middle of the road. It was an hour of standing around in the freezing cold until the bus was finally freed. It was a further hour to Puno, a city on the edge of Lake Titicaca. Titicaca is the second largest lake in South America, and it is big (making Taupo look like a bath tub, metaphorically speaking). Jumping off the bus we caught a taxi to the town square, a nice little 100m stroll to our hostel. Unbelievably I got shat on twice by a filthy flock of pigeons during that 100m walk. As a minor consolation, our hostel actually had hot constant hot water, a rarity in South America, which allowed me to wash the most offensive material off my jumper, shorts, pack, camera bag, and my face. Not a great start to the day, but better things were ahead.

 Puno and the Lake

Aaron and the Lake

The main reason for visiting Puno was to get out onto the Lake. In particular to get to the floating islands made of reeds that are lived on by hundreds of locals. You read that correctly. A bunch of locals actually live on islands constructed totally of reeds that float in the middle of the lake. Whats more is that the houses on the islands are also made of reeds, and the locals even eat the reeds as a staple of their diet. What is even more is that the reeds have a habit of rotting, meaning the reeds keeping the island afloat have to be replaced once a week in the wet season, and once a month in the dry season. No problem though, you can just pick up the reed houses and stuff some more reeds underneath them. Perfect. The reed community even has a couple of primary schools for the kids to attend. Several families live on each island, and in the event of there being a falling out, the island can be literally cut up we were told... ´´like a block of cheese´´ (as presumably many Peruvian families also live on blocks of cheese). A tough life though, to live on the reeds, we were also told it would probably be the last generation that actually does so.

Reeds - Everywhere

 Probably Running From School

Titicaca - Copacabana

Copacabana is three hours from Puno, still on lake Titicaca, but across the border into Bolivia. We met up with Aaron Sweet and Chris Sutton for this leg of the journey. Copacabana is Bolivia´s only beach, and does not have anything to do with the song ´´at the Copa... Copacabana...´´ about the beach in Brazil. However, that fact did not stop us singing it the whole time we were there, with the added lyrics ´´... in Bolivia!´´. We settled on a hotel about 30m away from the beach, and with some stunning views across the lake. It set us back $6us each. We went out for a three course lunch, including trout freshly caught from the lake, $3us each. Life was good. That night we met up for few drinks with Jodie and Helen, a couple of English birds we had saved from possible death with our hotel recommendation, over their initial choice of abode, the rapy killy hostel. During the day we had been eyeing up a couple of pedal powered swan boats docked out the front of our hotel. After dinner and a several bottles of tinto down, 2 am seemed like the perfect time to take them for a text drive. It turns out it was.

 Post Swan Boat Celebration

Copacabana sits at around 3,850m above sea level. The hill overlooking the town and the lake sits at about 3,970m. Having resolved to climb it, but naturally disappointed that we couldn't knock off the 4,000m mark we all came up with reasons why we can claim we got to 4,000m.

Bretty: It is 4,000m above Amsterdam surely (which sits below sea level).
Sutts: Rounded to 2 significant figures, it is 4,000m.
Aaron: If the extra 30m was there, we would have climbed it.
Me: It is at least 4,000m above the mean radius of the earth (as the earth is wider at the equator than at the poles).

We climbed the hill that night and enjoyed the sunset, things looked good at 4,000m.

 Sunset at 4000m

La Paz - Death Road

Moving city again = another bus ride. We only had 150km to cover, should be a piece of cake. Well it took us 6 hours and three buses to get there (our first one was over booked, the second broke down half way, and the third we ended up sitting on the floor of). Nonetheless we were in La Paz. We had a couple of trips planned from there, one, being mountain biking down the ´Death Road´, and two, visiting the Amazon Basin.
The Death Road is so called, as historically about 100 people a year die over the 30km stretch of winding narrow unsealed road, usually by buses or trucks falling off the edges of the 1000m sheer cliffs. The road is so narrow that one large sized bus can just manage to eek its way down the road. The situation when that bus is met by another coming up the road - one of the two buses must reverse to the nearest ´´wide spot´ to allow for passing. Apparently most accidents happen when reversing, a back wheel slips off the edge of the cliff and the bus goes down. Lucky about three years ago, a new, sealed road was opened replacing the death road as the only means of leaving the city heading north. Fortunately for us this meant that there was very little traffic to contend with on the road.

 L to the Paz - La Paz, Bolivia

We started the bike ride on paved roads, about 30km above the death road, at an altitude of 4,700m. The next 64km on our bikes would take us down to 1,200m. The first 30km we covered in about 45min of riding. The weather was perfect, the views stunning, and there were no sheer cliffs to contend with. I didn´t take my camera with me on the bike ride, but snapped a few pics of this part of the road a few days later when catching the bus into the amazon.

The Paved Section of the Death Road

Turning off the tarmac and onto the Death Road, the weather had closed in. We were faced with drizzle, mist and visibility of about 15m, and the sheer cliffs had entered into the equation. Although not pushing it too hard, I ended up in the ´advanced´ group which wasn´t really that advanced. But sitting on a purpose built double suspension $6000 downhill bike, you felt pretty safe. I was pretty happy though when half way down the road, and below cloud level, things dried out, and you could actually see where you were going. The pace picked up, and it was a ride to remember. The sad news of the day, not in our group, but a couple of groups behind us one girl actually fell off the cliff. One mistake in the wrong place and that is it. She was one of the unlucky ones.

Amazon Basin - Rurrenbaque

Everyone had told us not to take the bus to the Amazon. 20 odd hours of winding and bumpy roads compared to a 45min scenic flight. At $8 though, compared to $80 for the plane, it was never really a choice. The bus was windy, and bumpy, but strangely, thoroughly enjoyable. Maybe it was the milky way lit up across the night sky, or possibly the blaring loud Spanish music pumped through the bus that I managed to drown out with my ipod, but I jumped out of the bus 21 hours later primed and ready for the Amazon. Unfortunately Brett had the exact opposite bus experience, and he stumbled out having seen better days. A day relaxing in Rurrenbaque though wasn´t such a bad option. The next morning we were in the back of a land cruiser, heading out towards the jungle. Knowing our luck with transport, we were not surprised when half an hour in our Toyota blew a tyre. It had a spare though, but by the state of it I don´t know how it lasted the further 2 hours in.

 Bus to Rurrenbaque - Narrow and Winding

But we had three days ahead of us, of cruising the Rio Beni in the amazon basin in a 40 foot long, 4 foot wide boat with a 15horse Yamaha on the back. It was a pretty sweet package, a couple of hours cruising, taking in the wildlife (alligators, white herons, capibaras - the worlds largest rodent, bigger than your average pig, howler monkeys, cheeky monkeys plus heaps more), jump out at your hut where lunch was prepared for you, then an afternoon cruise, swim with some pink dolphins, watch the sun go down, liberally apply the insect repellent, get back to your hut for dinner, and then sleep. Repeat the next day, but perhaps throw in some piranha fishing, relaxing in hammocks, and night time river cruising with the stars up above and fire-flies illuminating the trees around you. The pictures will probably give a better idea though, so have included some of my favourites below.

 Never Smile at a Crocodile - or Alligator for that Matter

Also don´t smile at this guy

But by the end, we were Best Mates

After catching a Piranah, you eat it.  Quite ironic.  Look at its teeth.

WTF Monkey

This is how we do Sunset

 Cruising the River

 Chilling out on the River

 Not a bad place to have a beer

Stars, Boat, Night Shot

Almost expected, our Toyota blew another tyre on the way back out of the jungle.

Next installment should be in a couple of weeks after we finish our Bolivian leg of the journey. Catch you then.