Lake Titicaca

After the mass of barking dogs, this new spot was paradise. While it was cold, it was quiet and peaceful. The girls only had one jumper between them, so they had to share, while we piled on the layers.

The following morning a guy arrived on his bike to collect 10 bolivianos for the night and aside from that the whole place was nearly deserted all day. We decided to see if we could find a local shop, we hadn’t quite had the chance to do our post border stock up yet. 

Looking at the towns on google satellite, they were incredibly small and we’d be lucky to find a town at all. The closest though, Cocotoni, was within walking distance and so we decided to head there. It’s a straightforward walk back down along the track we came in on but Lee still managed to fall over a tiny rock and then hobbled rather more slowly into town. 

We met the guys at the entrance gate, which was now down and they seemed pretty friendly. We continued on to look for a small shop. The village is a reasonable size, but it’s purely residential. A few people sorted potatoes at the side of the road. There was a large deserted sports facility which is pretty normal and not much else apart from small mud shacks interspersed between other more permanent looking brick buildings. We did find the shop though. It was the potato sorters house. 

A small room had been designated as ‘the shop’. Groceries were piled up in uneven stacks in the corners and one side had some shelves. There was nothing like aisles or tills here. Instead we poked around in the heaps until we found a can of sardines for the cats, some flour to make bread and a bottle of slightly suspicious looking coffee liqueur. With our trophies, we began the half hour walk back to Ruby in the beautiful afternoon sunshine. 

We had planned to stay here a couple of weeks and spend the time catching up after the mad rush of Peru. Not only were we behind on our videos and blogs, but the speed of crossing a country that size (and not the cheapest one at that) in only a month had taken its toll on our finances. The slower we go the better we are and this gorgeous and basically free spot seemed like the perfect place to catch our breath. 

The next day was definitely a relaxed one. We still had little jobs left over from Ecuador that had never been done and so while Lee worked on the next video I set about fixing our fog lights. In the meantime, locals came in their boats and collected reeds from the lake and once again the man turned up on his bike to charge us and give us our entrance ticket. We hadn’t been entirely sure if it was a per day charge on a single entrance fee but it appeared to be a daily thing. Not that it was a problem. 

The next day however, no one came to collect money. It was another glorious day, the sun at this altitude coupled with the cold nights meant that we had an abundance of battery power and I could bake pretty much as frequently as I wanted. Back in the real world, it was Prime Day and as soon it was my turn to sit down with the laptop and search out some bargains to replace the ever growing list of broken bits that we seem to have. This time, a new reverse camera was definitely in order and we also ordered a few other things to make our life in Ruby a bit easier like a new water temperature gauge and a water filter. 

While I spent money we didn’t have, Lee emptied the toilet. With easy access to the beautiful clear waters of the lake, it was a great time to wash all the wine and rice off Ruby, as well as do some clothes washing. 

We decided we’d stay here till the weekend, before we’d probably have to go to a proper shop. In the meantime to keep us going, it seemed like a great idea to kayak across the lake to San Pablo de Tiquina. This is a bigger town with a few more shops which we’d seen previously as we drove through after leaving the ferry. We got out the kayak and got ready for a day out. 

The waters around us were still, the odd duck floated by and the reeds swirled gently. We launched the kayak easily off the shore and set about paddled across from our point to a bay a few kilometres on the other side. The plan was to then leave the kayak here and walk up and over the hill into town. We could have driven, but this seemed more fun and so we set off. At first it was an easy trip and we glided along effortlessly. After we left the shelter of our little peninsula the wind picked up, now blowing down the length of this very large lake. Instead of easy paddling things were now quite wavy. The wind was at our backs as we headed towards the shore, with the occasional large wave hitting us and going inside the kayak.  The freezing water with a steady wind made things rather cold and I was glad that the sun was out. 

After an hour or so of paddling, we approached the other shore. Here it was a little less easy to land as the waves, although small were enough to crash over the sides as we tried to get out on the beach. Sightly soggy, we dragged the kayak up onto the beach. There was no one around, but as a precaution I defltated it in case anyone chanced their luck. Then we put our shoes back on and began to hike up the hill at the back. There was no clear path until we reached near the top and finally picked up a small track. Not that it was hard to walk across the mainly bare land. It looked like people had grown crops here in the past. The land had been marked out into fields with terraces cut into the slopes as they rose up behind the beach. Maybe it was the time of year, but the fields lay empty and brown. Judging by the lack of natural vegetation, it looked like it’d be hard work growing things here.

We puffed our way up to the top, still not fully acclimatised to this altitude or perhaps just horribly unfit. From our vantage point, the far larger town of San Pablo lay below. It was a short descent down into the main square. Here they even had a market, but it didn’t appear to be on today. We perused the limited selection of local shops, none of which sold all that much. The main things we were running low on were drinks, but there was only so much of that I wanted to lug up the hill and kayak back across with. Still we stocked up on a few bits and bobs, had a quick wander around the town which didn’t last long, before tackling the back up. 

Back at the top, we followed a more defined route back into the valley a little way and then back down along the now dry river bed. I pumped up our flat kayak and loaded it up with the groceries. Then we pushed it a little way into the much larger than I would have chosen waves, and I got in. Immediately a large wave broke over the side and I was drenched in freezing lake water. At least I had insisted we put our phones in a plastic bag, it looked like this was going to be wet. While I sat in the kayak waiting for Lee to get in, another freezing wave hit. I was not best impressed, shouting at Lee to get in, as from where I was sitting this was taking far too long. After being drenched a third time, we were all aboard and turned around into the wind. The waves were quite large and despite our best efforts to hit them at the right angle, an inflatable kayak was probably not best suited to this situation. While I felt like sitting up front I got the worst of it, but we were both wet. We were now paddling against the waves and into the wind and progress was much much slower than before. It seemed like an age before the wind started to drop as we pulled into the shelter of the peninsula. Tiny little Ruby on the shore got slowly bigger.

While I knew I was cold, I was so focused on paddling back it hadn’t really sunk in. Here now, as we pulled up to the beach I realised how freezing I was. The sun and exercise was not enough to offset the wind and wet. With my teeth chattering I dived into the cover of the van and pulled off my soaking wet clothes. A hot drink was in order, and even after that it took me several hours to shake the cold which had chilled me to the bone. Despite the very cold ending, it had been a nice little day trip and I made a mental note to bring a coat next time, whatever the weather. 

Our little trip to the other town meant we had plenty of supplies to last the next few days. By the time the weekend arrived though, we really needed a lot more things and so we packed up the van to go to a bigger town. We decided that we would come back here again after, we couldn’t get enough of the brilliant blue lake and skies, coupled with the silent nights. The lake was so clean, we filtered and drank it, Now with more time on our hands, we got back into cooking some of our favourite meals as well.

There wasn’t many big towns in this part of the world, and so we headed to what seemed like the best option, Achacahi. Not much was showing up on google in the way of shops, but it was a large town and it must have something. We also needed to get our tyre repaired, we had a slow puncture that we had to keep filling on a daily basis at the laguna. 

As is often the case, the outskirts of the town was where the mechanics and repairs shops were to be found. We pulled up outside a pile of tyres and asked if they could repair the puncture. It didn’t take him long to get the wheel off, but finding the puncture took a little while longer. Eventually after he filled up a large bowl of water and dunked it in, the tell tale bubbles led us to a big screw, completely buried in the tread. For a reasonable of £2, this was soon repaired and we headed further into town where our luck ended. 

Because it wasn’t clear where the biggest supermarket would be, we opted to park up on a street and have a walk around. The first stop was going to be the atm and as there was only one in the town we walked there first. It appeared that there was some kind of celebration going on. An old drunk man wandered around, peeing in the middle of the street. On every street corner people sat in groups on upturned crates surrounded by empty beer bottles and soggy little piles of pre-chewed coca leaves littered the pavements in abundance. The first group we walked past didn’t seem too unfriendly but we were clearly the odd ones out here judging by the stares. That in itself is not unusual.

We found the atm, negotiating the large metal stage that was being constructed in the square and more drunk weeing men. Outside, groups of cholitas sat, surrounded by beer bottles, shouting at us. It wasn’t the nicest atmosphere for foreigners and the cash point wouldn’t accept any of our cards. We decided to have a quick walk around to try and see if we could find a shop big enough to take cards. We were greeted by more stares and then the local teenagers making a quite clear ‘fuck off’ gesture to us across the street. It didn’t take us long to see that despite the size of the town, there were no ‘proper’ shops here, just lots of little street sides stalls all selling the same things. The chances of finding cat food seemed slim, that was for sure. 

We decided to try one more cash point, which very nearly ate our card, before heading back to the van. We didn’t want some drunk idiot damaging what was clearly a foreign car. We decided we didn’t like Acacachi, as much as it didn’t like us and made ourselves scarce. While it is common to be stared at, and often shouted at, this was definitely more malicious than curious. We read a comment from another traveller in a nearby town that the locals here believed foreigners brought bad luck and ruined their harvests. That seemed to explain the unwelcoming feeling and we decided that in this case we had little alternative but to head towards La Paz and back into the 21st century. 

Instead of heading straight there, we stopped off in the small town of Batallas first. We camped outside a small closed museum on a big grassy space and at least we ended our rather unpleasant day with the much more common sight of friendly locals. Here everyone smiled and waved. They told us it was of course ok for us to park here.

“Tranquillo, no pasa nada aqui!”

They reassured us, before either coming to pet the cats or ask us how long we had been travelling.

The balance had been restored.