Kayaking Titicaca

I kayaked Titicaca ! :-)  At 4000 meters (12,000 feet) the lake is basically up there in the clouds.  I remembered once I went sky diving from an altitude of 10,000 feet and the ground looked so far below. Now, I was in a boat 2000 feet above that.

At that altitude, I expected it to be a breathless exercise, but it was actually pretty easy.  The lake was calm and the day sunny.  There were a couple of nearby islands, and far in the distance, 6000 meter snow capped peaks marking the border between Bolivia and Peru.

I also went on an organized tour to visit the floating islands of Lake Titicaca.  The history and engineering of the islands is pretty amazing.  They are peopled by a folk named the Uros, and they used to live on land, but got pushed off into the lake by other invading tribes.  They first lived on their large reed boats, but they started creating islands entirely out of reeds.  The islands float about one meter above lake level and go down one to two meters while the lake bed lies at 15 meters.  It's pretty incredible walking on them as they need to be constantly refreshed from the top with  (every two weeks) as the bottom rots out, otherwise, the whole island would irreversibly sink.  There were initially a couple of these islands, but as families grew, the islands subdivided, much like cells in the human body, and there is currently 50 of them.  The people living on them now are probably the last generation and in the future, the islands are likely to be maintained only for tourism.

I also visited the nearby island of Imantani and Taquile.  Imantani was an interesting place.  We stayed with a local family.  Taquile on the other hand was a tourist trap and I was glad to leave it.

While the organized tour I was on headed back to the town of Puno, I hopped on a fishing sail boat for a 1:30 ride to the village of Llachon where I got to kayak.  In Llachon, I was lucky to stay with a very nice family.  They were wonderfully warm and friendly and as I got to know them felt more comfortable taking pictures of the family.

See my Picasa for more pictures.

After lake Titicaca, I took a 6 hour bus ride to Cusco to visit the Inca ruins.  Cusco itself is an incredibly charming city, but it is almost ruined by the street hussling (I was offered a massage at least 20 times today) and the number of tourists dressed in weird ethnic ways they'd never dare to at home, and talking to shop staff in English assuming everyone ought to understand them.

Luckily, I am leaving Cusco tomorrow and going on extended 9 day hike through Andean wilderness, passing some massiving Inca ruins such as Choquequirao and ending in Machu Pichu.  More when I get back in 9-10 days.

Tarik