Peru and Bolivia: Cast adrift on Lake Titicaca
Peru and Bolivia: Cast adrift on Lake Titicaca
JILL WORRALL
Last updated 05:00, July 27 2015
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Reuters
An Andean girl walks in front of her home, a straw hut, on one of the Uros island on Lake Titicaca.
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Lake Titicaca covers an area of 58,000 square kilometres, 3800 metres up in the Andes, straddling both Peru and Bolivia. It's big. And can get choppy at dusk. So it's no place to be bobbing around in a small dinghy with only one oar. Jimena, my Bolivian guide, and I are not exactly lost at sea - the Island of the Sun is almost within swimming distance to our left, but as the water temperature is about 10 degrees Celsius I'm putting that option down the bottom of the list ... for now.
We're not alone either. With us as we turn lazy circles under a cloudless Andean sky are Carlos and Jesus (the latter's name seems a good omen at least, especially if he has walking-on-water abilities).
We're the floating management team for an afternoon expedition to Inca ruins on the island. Jimena, Carlos and I are staying on a catamaran that makes overnight cruises on the Bolivian portion of the lake, and Jesus is a local. The three Kiwi clients we are looking after are in another rowboat which has already disappeared around a headland.
All had been going well until Jesus' oar snapped. It had done so loudly, and so without warning that Jesus had hurtled backwards and struck his head on the seat behind him. For a brief moment I thought he'd been shot.
More:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/south-america/70368322/peru-and-bolivia-cast-adrift-on-lake-titicaca
