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Lake
on the roof of the world Lake Titicaca – it’s one of these places everyone has heard of, but few have visited. It might have started at primary school – sniggering with my mates because it sounded a bit rude. Then when I grew up and started to get interested in the world, I learned that not only is it the biggest lake in South America – it’s also the highest navigable lake in the world. Well for someone like me who grew up in Scotland and loves lakes and mountains, that virtually amounts to a challenge. And so it was that in July 2005, I found myself landing at El Alto international airport near La Paz, on a flight from Lima with a group of like-minded travellers on an Exodus tour. I got off the plane, stretched and took a deep breath – and nothing happened. That was the first surprise – the airport is over 4000m above sea level, and altitude sickness is a real possibility at this height. But at least what air there was was fresh and clean – a pleasant change from the Lima smog. So I reminded myself that part of the reason for coming here was as preparation and acclimatisation for my trek along the Inca trail in just over a week’s time, and resolved to take it easy for a couple of days until the wonderful machine that is the human body got around to producing all those extra red blood cells. After checking into our hotel in La Paz, we went off to see the pre-Inca archaeological site of Tiwanaku, just outside La Paz. Not many people know about this place, which is a real shame. The people who built Tiwanaku lived around the area of Lake Titicaca from at least 1500BC until their civilisation started to fall apart around AD1200. They held an empire which at its peak stretched from the northern tropics of Peru down the coast into Chile, and encompassed much of northern and central Argentina. The remaining ruins show how skilled these people were at building – somehow cutting huge stone blocks so accurately that they fit together without a gap. This is something that always amazes me – you see it not only in Latin America, but also in the pyramids of Egypt. How did they do it? And perhaps more importantly – why? The next
day we went off for a gentle hike in the Cordillera Real. This is the
mountain range that rises above La Paz, and the views are spectacular.
The beautiful peak of Nevado Illimani stands as a guardian spirit over
the city, and we spent a very pleasant day walking through the Pulco Canyon
and admiring the scenery. We met many of the local Aymara people along
the way – very friendly, but also quite curious about us – I
don’t think they get many tourists in these parts. Another strange custom we saw a lot of, was the bowler hats worn by many Aymara women. The story goes that in the 1920s a consignment was sent for the Europeans working on the railways. But they turned out to be too small, and were distributed to the locals. For some reason, the women then adopted them as part of the local chola dress. On the third day, we finally got our first sight of the Lake. We reached the shore near a workshop where we met the Aymara boat builder Paulino Esteban. Esteban’s main claim to fame is that he built the famous Ra I and Ra II in which Thor Heyerdahl demonstrated that such reed boats could have crossed the Atlantic. It was fascinating to watch the reeds being bundled and tied together and amazing to think that such fragile craft could travel such distances. We drove on to spend a night at the resort of Copacabana. If you think you’ve heard of this place before, you’re almost certainly thinking of its more famous namesake in Brazil, immortalised in song by Barry Manilow. But the locals insist that this pleasant town on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca is the original, and who am I to argue? I must say I really liked this place - it was surprisingly quiet for such a breathtakingly beautiful spot. We stayed in a small hotel in rooms with huge windows overlooking the lake, and I started daydreaming about one day buying a place like this and running it as a rather upmarket backpackers’ hotel. I’m sure there ought to be a market for such a thing! Beside the town is a hill called Calvary, and by this time we were feeling sufficiently acclimatised for a bit of a climb. So we headed up to watch the sun set over the lake. To say it was spectacular just doesn’t do justice to the experience. I’m not a religious person at all, but I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the Spanish conquistadors made the ascent to this peak something of a pilgrimage. As it does in the tropics, it quickly got dark after the sun went down, and the stars started to come out. For the first time in my life I saw the Southern Cross – over the still waters of Lake Titicaca. Magical! The following day, we went down to the harbour and took a motor launch to one of the lake’s biggest islands - the Isla del Sol. This was a sacred place to the Incas - the legendary birthplace of Manco Capac (the first Inca), and of the sun itself. We spent a few hours exploring the island before heading back to Copacabana and then driving along the lake shore into Peru, stopping for the night at Puno, the main town at the Peruvian end of the lake. There wasn’t too much to see in the town itself, but it made a good base for the night. From Puno, we took an early morning trip in a reed boat to the floating islands of the Uros. Yes they are islands, and yes they are floating! The Uros people have lived on the lake for centuries, building their islands from the reeds that abound in the shallow waters to isolate themselves from the Incas and other more aggressive tribes. Nowadays, the islands are more of a tourist attraction than a sustainable lifestyle, but several hundred people do still live there, and manage to make a living by fishing and selling crafts to the tourists. After sailing
back through the reeds to Puno, we sadly took our leave of Lake Titicaca.
As our bus travelled northwards towards the Altiplano on the way to Cusco
and the start of the Inca Trail, I took one last look backwards and vowed
to return one day. Despite the altitude, the headaches and the nosebleeds,
Lake Titicaca had captured my heart as few places have. First published
in VISA 80A (Aug 2008) |