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I hope ya’all are entertained with our challenges, as it’s much more interesting to laugh at our hardships, perhaps we will feel the same when we return. Our plan after Puno was to head into Bolivia, work our way down through Chile, up through Argentina and back through Bolivia to finish in Peru. The stars were not aligned for us this day.

We bought our tickets straight to La Paz and left at 2:30pm. About 3 hours later at the border, the bus driver asked who the Americans were and he announced that it woud be $100 US to enter the border. We were shocked. It was the first we had heard of such a thing, having lived in Peru since September and following the most recent Lonely Planet guidebook (which says there is NO entrance fee). We thought they were scamming us and got angry. We walked to the Bolivia side and talked to immigration, who told us if we didn’t pay the $200 total, we couldn’t enter the country. That amount of money is what we could spend in a month of living in Bolivia (more or less). A border that has NO ATM and we don’t travel with that much money in our pockets any way. Shock to anger to frustration to disappointment.

Our only option was to turn around, hop on a taxi to the next town, grab the last 2 seats in a local bus going back to Puno (facing sideways, against the driver’s seat). So around 9pm we got back to Puno, at square one. Apparently, this past December, Bolivia’s socialist president decided to charge a reciprocity fee to Americans. Thanks a lot, Georgie. But a nice thing DID happen to us, we visited the agency we bought our tickets from in Puno (ALL Ways Travel) and explained the situation and the very nice owner, Victor, reimbursed the portion of the bus we didn’t ride (border to La Paz). No one informed us of the entrance fee when we bought the ticket or got on the bus (they knew before we boarded the bus we were from the US)…maybe someone should have, we could have looked it up as well but didn’t think to. Well, Chile currently has no fees for entering on land (it’s $100US if you enter on a plane in Santiago) so we’ll head there next.

We spent a few days before and after the islands trip in Puno, a dusty city at one end of Lake Titicaca. Since it’s at such a high elevation, the sun is strong during the day and it’s cold at night. We both bought sweaters to keep ourselves warmer (as our hostal had no heat). Puno’s not a very pretty town but the view of the lake is nice. It rained hard every night (one night it actually hailed for a solid half hour).

The food’s decent enough, we ended up eating at a Hare Krishna place a lot (Govinda, sl.5 lunch) and el Buho (not the one on calle Lima, it’s just down the corner) which had an adobe wood fired oven and they made thin crust pizza, calzones and had a delicious garlic dipping sauce. We went to the Coca Museum, which was interesting to learn about how medicinal coca leaves are (i’m amazed that chewing the leaves is really GOOD for your teeth..it prevents cavities, unlike tobacco).

We tried to time our trip to include Candelaria (feb.2) but it was not as exciting as we thought. Apparently the really cool parade with crazy costumes and masks is on Feb. 10. On Friday night we went and saw some random, unsafe fireworks and a parade in the streets with a Canadian/Belgian couple we met. Saturday morning we tried to go to the special mass but we missed it (the tourist office told us 9am..but it was 8am and we got to see a statue of Mary leaving the church and going for a walk). Sunday was the big folklore dance competition in the stadium and that was interesting. The groups all kinda had the same music (single drumbeats, trumpets, panpipes somehow out of tune). The danced in formations and the costumes were interesting. We didn’t really understand the meaning of the dances or costumes so we felt a bit lost…but it was interesting at least.

Beavis would be proud, we have made it to Lake Titicaca. The elevation here (3830m) is intense and it took me about 2 days to feel like my head was not in a fishbowl. But, the altitude sickness was not as bad as last time…no major nausea. I rested for a few days once we arrived in Puno, then we headed to see the islands.

The Lonely Planet guidebook makes a BIG deal about how travel agencies in town don’t give the locals a fair commission (and somehow it is cheaper to go with a guide than alone) and they encourage you to do it on your own so the locals see more money. Sounds all roses and puppy dogs, eh? That was not our story.

We bought a 3 island ticket direct from the port, the first stop being touristy Uros, the floating islands. Unfortunately, we were the only tourists and the capitan decided to skip Uros and go straight to Amantaní (without informing us). I was worried but he promised the next day he would take us to Uros before returning in Puno.

Sooo, we arrived in Amantaní, blue skies, strong sun and an island that has about 4,000 inhabitants. We were put up with the capitan’s family, who were nice but spoke in Quechua to each other unless we asked questions in Spanish. It was a little awkward. We spent the day wandering around town and hiking to the 2 big ruins; Pachatata and Pachamama, which are circular stone walls with a sunken ground. The views were great.

We even ate pretty well because the island is all about agriculture and sheep for wool. Meat’s expensive so their diet is for the most part, vegetarian. Muña tea was a favorite (a local herb kind of like mint). In the evening, Matt and I got dressed up in the local garb (the women’s clothing is complicated and very tight around the ribcage) and went to a peña, with local music and more tourists from the island. We learned their local dance (holding hands and violently shaking them back and forth while dancing forwards or backwards) and tried a local Puno beer (which tasted like Coors).

The next day we took a boat to Taquile, after much fighting with the boat capitans (the guys from yesterday were nowhere to be seen) who refused to take us to Uros and at one point in the discussion told us we weren’t welcome on their boat. Long, frustrating story short, we got to visit Taquile but were screwed out of Uros. I don’t know if it’s a fact or not about the travel agencies taking advantage of the islanders, but I would recommend going with the agencies because at least you go to all the islands and don’t have to deal with the boat capitans…better than being angry that the locals are taking more advantage of you….it left a bad taste for us. (Inka Tours, ask for Neo…he was with another group on the island and was really nice.)

So, Taquile is a 7km island with 2,000 inhabitants that rarely marry outside their island. They are known for fine weaving skills (men used to weave with their own hair) and unique clothing, where you can identify if someone is single and looking or not or married just by the style of their hat or color of their skirt. We only spent about 3 hours on the island, but it was pretty and the hike was nice. The men knit their own hats as well, and we saw boys knitting all over the place. The deal is that the marriage-ability test is for a woman to pour water into the man’s hat and it the weave isn’t tight enough to keep the water in, he’s not going to make a good husband.

They also have a ritual before marriage where they live together for 2 years and after that time they can choose to get married or not. If not, a new guy can move in with the girl and see how it goes. They also have to have a child before they can get married. Their culture is really interesting and detailed.

After Taquile, we had to go back to the mainland then buy another ticket to Uros, which is VERY touristy and I’m curious how many people actually live on the reed islands in their reed houses on their beds of reeds. It looks like something out of Disney, people living on islands made of reeds. It’s a little squishy and our boat took us to one island, where we learned how they make the islands (and if a family fights and wants to move, they cut part of the island off and push it away) and looked at the wares for sale.

We took a reed boat taxi to another island and looked at their stuff for sale and then left. I think it was the most touristy thing we’ve done so far but it was still neat to see the islands. You can even spend a night in one of the reed houses but it looked pretty cold….at this elevation it’s really cold at night!

Overall it was an interesting trip and pretty islands but it was frustrating having to fight along the way for fairness. I would have rather gone with a tour group, but oh well.