Around Lake Titicaca

We´ve spent the last few days around Lake Titicaca, the lake famous for being the highest navigable lake in the world. (It´s almost true.) We´re at almost 13,000 ft in Cobacana, Bolivia now. Before Copacabana, we we´re in Puno, Peru on the Peruvian side of the lake. We didn´t have much time there but managed to squeeze in a short boat trip to the floating islands, a group of islands made of reeds. People live in reed houses on the islands. It is really quite incredible.

On a floating island.

Yesterday, we crossed the border to Bolivia. In all 3 countries we´ve been to, there´s been a big swine-flu fuss at the border. In each place you have to fill out a form and check off which symptoms you have (cough, temperature, runny nose, etc.). Of course, all of the travellers check off that they have no symptoms, so it isn´t terribly efficient. In Mexico they checked our body temperatures though.

Swine flu float. One of many at an art school (I think) in Cusco.

Anyways, we arrived in Copacabana in the afternoon and hiked up the hill to the hostel we had reserved. It was very nice-hammocks everywhere, beautiful architecture, great food, and nice extras like hot water bottles at night (it gets really cold up here!). For Bolivia though, it was very expensive at $28/ night.

Last night we watched the sun set over the lake from the top of a little mountain in town. The mountain is also a cemetery which made watching the sunset a little odd but I suppose it is a nice place to visit deceased relatives.

Sunset at the cemetery.

Today we walked around Copacabana, which is a small city and went to the lake. We rented a paddleboat and paddled around the lake a bit. That was really nice. The water is really calm so we could just sit out there and take in the lake and surroundings for a while. The sun is very strong here, due to the altitude so the paddle boats come with little optional cloth roofs. Nice! The lake is full of trout so a lot of restaurants have trout on the menu and we´ve been eating a lot of trout. We had it for lunch at the little lakeside shack and it was one of best meals of the trip! Mine had a tomato and onion sauce. Jeff´s had a lemon sauce. It came with rice and french fries (as does almost everything) and cost $2.50 each. I was in heaven! I almost ordered a second plate.

Jeff at Kiosko 2

After lunch we played foosball at some tables they rent out on the beach. Great day!
Tomorrow we´ll go to Isla del Sol, an island in Lake Titicaca. After that, we´ll go to La Paz, and after that we don´t know what we´ll do.

Everywhere we´ve been people love Michael Jackson. They play his songs in the restaurants, have posters up, and sell knock-off DVDs in the streets. In the places they sell the DVDs they usually have a TV showing the DVDs and a large group of people crowded around to watch the video of old MJ concerts and music videos. Today, we saw a little kid, maybe 5 years old, trying to teach himself the Thriller dance. So cute!