LAKE TITICACA (Copacabana and Puno). The Worlds Highest Navagable Lake. 35 285 Km

Heavily on board the tourist trail now, we made our way out from La Paz to Copacabana on the Shores of Lake Titicaca. Sitting just shy of 4000m, it's famed for being the highest navigable lake in the world, for containing the Floating islands, and for the fact that Bolivia has put it's Navy in there after losing it's last piece of ocean access in territorial disputes (read mineral war)with other countries.

It's not a long hop from La Paz and the trip is so common that we had the bus pick us up from the hostel, which meant no need to get up any earlier or rush through traffic to the bus station. Despite it not being a long distance there was a fair bit of road work that slowed things down. We then got within 50min of Copa but had to get off the bus, get onto a small possible sinky sort of boat to cross a narrow stretch of water, and then continue with the bus once it had crossed on a barge.

But we made it without too many concerns and set off to explore Copa.

There aren't a terrible lot of touristy things to do in town itself with the exception of the Cathedral. It can be seen just off centre in the picture above and is fairly dominating in size and space within town. And whilst the water looks inviting in parts, it's also freezing cold so not many people venture out in the water. Our main mission for the first afternoon was to organise a boat out to the Islands the following day.

Our initial plans were to go and stay for a couple of nights on Isla del Sol. Claire had been here 15 years ago, at which time there was next to nothing else on the island. We had heard there some hostels and restaurants there now and a number of people go out to stay. Unfortunately I still wasn't feeling great with altitude, and from what we had read, most of the accommodation was a fair walk up hill. So we opted for a trip to Isla de la Luna in the morning followed by Isla del Sol in the afternoon.

Isla de la Luna is a charming little island that I imagine was similar to Isla del Sol many years ago. There are a few families that continue to live and farm on the island as well a couple of ruins. We spent just an hour here enjoying the views out the mountains and the local ruins before getting back on the boat to head to Isla del Sol.

Sailing towards Isla del Sol, it's size is obvious immediately both in its footprint but as well as the steeply rising hills along its shore. Thinking the accommodation locations were typically at the top or close to the top, I was happy we weren't planning to hike our way out here and stay at the top. Once we first arrived though, we found there had been an influx of construction in the south where we had landed and there were numerous hostels and restaurants practically lapping the waters edge.

We made straight for one of the restaurants to see what was on offer and get a few over the water. With full bellies and our lighter day packs, we thought we should still continue up into the hills to see what was there, and for Claire to appreciate how much things had changed.

Despite the growth it was a beautiful place to go and hang out for a while. But the tour was going to finish in a day and we had to head back to Copa.

Once back, we had a quick ice-cream and water refuel and started once again making our way up hill. This time we were heading along the stations of the cross to the top of the hill to watch the sunset with so many of the other tourists.

A fire burns on the other side of the lake

The next morning it was time to cross over into Peru. We had heard for the last few days that we were likely going to have to walk some of the way as recent political protests had laced large boulders over the road between Copa and Puno. We weren't looking forward to it.

Thankfully, and to everyones surprise including the bus company, the road had been cleared overnight and we passed straight through to the Peruvian boarder. We were excited.

The reason for us to be in Puno was to go out to the Floating Islands. Whilst I was sure there was going to be a significant Tourist element to visiting these communities, it has been reported that there are around 1000 people living on 80 islands. The story goes that the ancestors of these people once inhabited the land around Puno but when the waters rose and Lake Titicaca formed, they refused to give up their stake of the land. So they developed a way to create islands of the reed that was native to the lake. Each year they cut out more reed and place it on top of the old reeds, that eventually rot from the water. Somewhere along the ling they designed an anchor system for each island during its making so these islands are no longer floating around but, like a some jetties, are not truely fixed either.

The Uros island we visited (taken in poor light)

It was a quick couple of days around the lake but it was marvellous to see this place that I have dreamed of for so many years. Now we are off to Cusco, the centre of the Incan nation.

35 285 Km (14011Km Flights, 8026Km Sailing, 13 118Km Bus, 112km Hiking, 18Km Horse riding)