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We spent the better part of an afternoon researching our options for visiting Lauca National Park, a really cool sounding park (giant volcanoes, a 4.500m lake, vicuñas, vizcachas and hot springs) that is on the border with Bolivia. We were shocked at what the tour agencies were charging for a basic 2 day, 1 night tour ($135 per person) so we once again, took the road less travelled.

We rented a car from Ghama Rent-a-Car and got a beat up Nissan pickup truck. We wanted a cheap, basic car, but they were out and we were out of time. The roads would have been fine for a car (and the gas mileage would have been nicer!) Anyhoo, we packed some food and headed from the deserty coast to the highest elevations that I have experienced. And I only suffered about a half hour of elevation sickness before bed, so my red blood cells must be working hard. The drive wasn’t too long but the scenery got old (dry, dusty desert). We saw some cool candelabra cacti and vicuñas grazing everywhere.

Vicuñas are like wild alpacas and the locals round them up once a year to shave them and set them free. Kind of weird thing to do, but a vicuña sweater will set you back about $1500, whereas the domestic docile alpaca sweater is only about $100. So there are reasons. They are cute, but my heart still goes out to the ewok alapacas and their ´fros.

We stopped in Putre, which is a little town at 3500m that has expensive gas (we used 1/2 tank in the 2 hour uphill journey and were worried to run out of gas. That was the only station we would see) and not much else. We stayed long enough to fill the tank, buy some coca leaves (since mine were taken at the border…but I learned it’s not legal to grow coca in Chile, so they import it from Bolivia…stranger still), and talk to the ranger. Yes, there’s park rangers in Chile! They had free maps and were friendly and helpful.

After we left Putre, we drove to Lago Chungara, a lake at 4517m! And I am proud to report I felt fine, except that it started hailing on us…hmm, a bit cold for camping. We didn’t expect it to be cold enough to snow, so we backtracked to a little cute ghost town called Parinacota. 10 families live in this town and there are herds of alpacas everywhere (and they all have their ears pierced with yarn pom poms, quite fashionable). We couldn’t find a living soul in the town for about 15 minutes, then an old man stuck his head out and offered to house us for the evening (for $10).

The next day we did the 1 hour interpretive trail at the edge of town and enjoyed the crazy amazing views of volcanoes (mainly Volcan Parinacota, over 6,000 m—it’s like looking at Mount Rainier, but it only being 30 minutes away instead of 5 hours like in Seattle). It looks like a melted whipped cream sundae. We had good weather the whole day and went to see the lake again with clearer views (there’s another volcano visible from the lake that you can see the smoke rising like a chimney). We did a little interpretive trail and then drove to the Bolivian border (how many bolivian border crossings will we aproach without crossing? so far 2.) and turned around and drove back on the main road.

We stopped at Las Cuevas, which had another interpretive trail (all of these complete with informative brochures! it was so fun) which lead to a lukewarm hot springs contained in a cute little stone house. We also saw a lot of vizcachas, which are somewhere between a rabbit and a chinchilla. They do not run away, either, which explains why they were hunted almost to extinction. They just kind of close their eyes and lay really still. Not the best tactic, but they were still cute.

My most memorable moment was when a pair of alpacas were laying in the road and we stopped in front of them so as to not kill them and instead of running away, they came up to the truck (one at each window) to say hi.  What curious adorable creatures!  My alapaca friend wanted me to rub it’s fluffy neck and I didn’t want to leave.  That encounter kept me smiling the rest of the day.

We finished our day off stopping by Jujuri Hot Springs, which was wonderful! The sun was out but the air was cold, so it was nice to have a little soak. The set up is at the edge of a gorge with 3 mud baths that cascade into each other. I could only enter the lower one. The top two were HOT. The mud stunk, but people say it’s medicinal. They have a giant pool for swimming, but it must have been 100 degrees. I couldn’t swim in it, but it was nice to just enjoy the view. They also had 2 pools with a roof (nice to avoid the sunburn) and a picnic area. So far we have been to 7 hot springs, and counting.

We decided against the “cold, bumpy long road” from Puno to Tacna, as described in our guidebook. Instead, we spent a night in Puno to de-stress and took a cheap bus back to Arequipa, spent a night there (watching TV), took Flores bus to Tacna (it’s the same price as fancy Cruz del Sur, except on this bus we were literally surrounded by children of varying ages, the ventilation didn’t work so they opened the emergency hatch (which made the air flow directly in my face) and it was noisy so we couldn’t watch any of the horrible movies that were playing, PLUS I had the only guy on the whole bus who wanted to recline all the way back in front of me). Well, the seats DID recline far, which was a plus. I don’t think Matt could have breathed if he had my guy in front of him. Note to self: take Cruz del Sur when returning.

So, we arrived in Tacna, went into the international bus station and took the next local bus across the border ($3…it’s $6 to take a minivan) The ride wasn’t that long, the border formalities were pretty straightforward (our bus driver took care of most of it for us) and I got pulled aside for my contraband: raisins and hoja de coca. Whoops! Chile takes their agriculture seriously (which is good) and there’s major food control at the border. We even saw dogs jumping in people’s trunks sniffing around for somethign that was perhaps not raisins.

Hopefully I can restock my coca supply here, as we plan to go up to some elevation higher than Puno. Right now we’re in Arica, another dusty coastal desert town, but we are obviously NOT in Peru. The streets are all paved with street lamps and yellow lines and are all labeled, the taxis are NOT honking, things cost a LOT more (about 3x more than Peru and gas is $5/gal) and I see a lot of people smoking, especially women. In Peru it was rare to see locals smoke, and it was usually men. The women are much more trendy with the fashion and we are hearing less cumbia and more American music (Jewel, Bon Jovi). We also saw our first McDonald’s in South America and I did NOT support them.

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.