Peru

After a long and very uncomfortable bus ride and no sleep , I arrived in Puno at 5 am in the morning.

From there, I took a boat to the Islas Flotantes de los Uros; the floating island of Uros.

The Uros are a people who live on forty-two self-fashioned floating islands in Lake Titicaca. They use bundles of dried totora reeds to make reed boats and to make the islands themselves:

As soon as I did my first step on the island, I had to throw up in the lake right away.

My entire body was totally exhausted from the trekking to Macchu Picchu, no sleep and the altitude (The Titicaca Lake is often called the highest navigable lake in the world, with a surface elevation of 3,812 meters ). Anyway, I would recommend to stay overnight on the floating islands to get to know the culture of this unique tribe. Otherwise, you probably won´t enjoy the island because it´s super touristic and you don´t get the feeling that this is real.

On the way back to the  mainland, I almost got a circulatory collapse and went straight to bed after drinking 2l of Coca Leave Tea, which definitely helped against the altitude sickness.

The next day, I went to the Bolivian side of the lake, to Copacabana. I missed the ferry to the Isla del Sol (They only run in the morning) but I found a cheap hostel for less than 2$ per night for a private room and I could enjoy the magical sunset overviewing the city and the beautiful lake.

In the next morning, I could manage to take the boat and went hiking the whole day around the Isla del Sol.

I´ve met an italian guy in a local restaurant for dinner who was volunteering on the island. We were the only guests in that restaurant and had a nice chat with the owner and his wife for a couple of hours. At the end they gave me the book OSHO- New man for the new millennium for my upcoming bus trips. I can highly recommend that book, which describes the thoughts of an indian philosopher about the new age which is (hopefully) coming up.

I stayed overnight on the island and travelled from Isla del Sol back to Copacabana and from there to La Paz, which is the Bolivian seat of government.

I stayed there for 4 nights with a german couchsurfer. We went to a Spanish lecture about J.R.R Tolkien, to the Valle de la Luna, the markets in El Alto, Quad driving and to a Cuba House Party with a Vodka Melon.

A system of urban transit aerial cable cars called Mi Teleférico (“My Cable Car”) was opened in 2014. So far there are three lines (red, yellow, green).

 

I had to stay another night in La Paz because the day I wanted to travel to Uyuni the bus drivers where striking.

From Uyuni, we started our jeep tour through the Salar de Uyuni, the worlds biggest salt desert.

Only 2000 km left to Buenos Aires!