Day 4: The Lake

Lake Titicaca: Today a group of about ten of us from the hostel visited the world's highest navigable lake, Lake Titicaca. We visited these floating reed islands that were first created back in the 1550s as a way to evade the Spanish conquistadors.

Our boat driver, Joseph, who sounded a little like Jack Black in Luca Libre, was full of jokes and funny/sad stories. Like the one about how we couldn't sit on the top of the boat because the Peruvian navy banned it after a group of school children who were dancing on the boat sunk the boat. Or that the boat fits 25 Americans or 50 Japanese people. That was a fat joke, for sure.

And I get the sense that Peruvians view Bolivia the way Monrovia views one if its neighboring cities. I'm pretty sure I heard Joseph say, "Stupid Bolivia."

Fun facts about the lake:
- Puno used to dump all its sewage in the lake, so now that side is still polluted. They stopped doing that about 15 years ago, but people still have to go out like ten miles to go fishing.
- In the old days - not sure when - whenever the floating lake people would die, they would be "buried" in the lake. Now they bury them on the mainland in Puno.
- There are about 1,400 floating island inhabitants, and the number is going up because the young kids are having hard times finding real jobs.
- I look really good in the traditional floating island outfit. I mean, really good.
- They have solar panels on the islands because they have lit the houses - made of dried reed - on fire a time or two.

That concludes my report. Bus takes off to Cusco tonight at 9.

Adios.