Seeing a little bit more of Bolivia.

In a bit of a round-about journey to visit the JVI site in Tacna, Perú, Brad and I swung through La Paz, Lake Titicaca, and Puno as a part of our community-building process. I have already written a bit about La Paz, so I will move on to the other adventures.

Lake Titicaca is every bit as beautiful as you could imagine. The water is crystal blue, and the mountains on the Bolivian side seem to float in the air. The sunset photo is taken over the lake from the little town of Copacabana. A far cry from the Brazillian beach city of the same name, this tiny town is the tourist center of the Bolivian side of Lago Titicaca. It is also the launch point for boat trips to Isla del Sol.

Isla del Sol was a focal point of the Incan Empire…the spot where both the sun and moon were born and where there exists the Rock of the Puma (which is the literal meaning of “Titicaca”), one of the three sources of cosmic energy in the world. In the photo I am sitting on one of the walls of one of the ancient Incan temples. As much as the Incas now fascinate us, they were the violent, Imperialists of their time. Their influence is so widespread because they conquered nearly all of the Andean peoples and forced their customs on them. There are few cultures that survived both the Incan conquerors and the European conquistadors.

One of the cultures that managed to persist is that of the floating islands of the Uros. They are found in a protected bay on the Peruvian side of the Lago near the town of Puno. And they are literally floating islands. They are made or tortora, a reed that provides the people with everything they need: food, houses, boats, and even the “land” that they live on, just as they have done for over 1,500 years. You can see the boats and the islands in the photos, which are made from the tortora and must be maintained regularly. The islands themselves are about half a meter thick, and they are floating in a part of the lake about 16 meters (50 feet) deep. The base of the torturo can be eaten raw, and is a little sweet and very watery, and the cookies made of the tortora weren't very good.