The name is Bolivar ... Simon Bolivar

We left Cuzco behind on Friday morning with a quick flight to Juliaca in the deep south of Peru. I don't much about Juliaca other than it has an airport. Our destination was Puno some 45 minutes further south on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca besides possessing an overly potty mouth name is the highest navigable lake in the world.

Puno was to be little more than a wait station before crossing the border to Bolivia the following morning. However Puno proved to be quite festive. We spent a large portion of the night in front of the Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas. It was the festival of the Virgin of Copacabana. There was a giant bonfire, puneno music, some traditional circle dance and lots of corn liquor being passed around. These religious folks know how to have a good time.

Saturday after a 3 hour bus ride we reached the Bolivian border. Most border towns are decidedly manic but this was one was closer to a a free form circus. There was nothing you couldn't buy - desk and chair set, blankets, car parts, pork, bootleg movies, it was all here in make shift stalls on both sides of a single lane dusty road. The road itself was an amalgam of tourist coaches, beeping mini-vans with sheep strapped to the roof, stray dogs, dirty faced kids and Andean women prodding pigs and donkeys. How anyone manages to get anything done in this environment is a source of mystery.

After a lunch of quality lake trout we climbed onto a boat and sped out towards Isla Del Sol. If it weren't for the lack of tidal activity you could easily mistake Lake Titicaca for the open sea. It appears almost boundless. The prevailing view is that it was once part of the Pacific and became hemmed in after the first ice age. Isla Del Sol and it sibling Isla del Luna are about an hour and a half boat ride from the shore. Isla Del Sol holds a significant place in Incan history. This is were the Sun as well as Manco Capac, the first Inca were born. It is also home to the Aymara, a pre Incan people of the Andean altiplano. After a half hour hike up from the playa, we checked into the first hostal we came to. With lungs and legs burning it was a difficult proposition not to accept the first lodging you happened upon. The residents of the island are almost exclusively of Aymara blood. There are no cars, no bank, no internet and almost no change for a 100 dollar Bolivian note. There is not much to do on the island except to relax, hike and take it all in. Late afternoon found us hiking up to the cupola, the highest point on the island to watch the sunset. From the top you have an uncompromised panaroma of Lake Titicaca with its' eerily still water. Having the place to ourselves it was an empty theater and every rock was free for sitting. Shortly after selecting my primitive barcolounger the show began. To the west the sun back lighted the clouds, the cloud cover in the center was straight out of a Raphael painting and the east was reminiscent of Sedona Arizona. For the next hour my eyes triangulated between these three until the sky had nothing left to give. Genius, Zen, God-like, insert your favorite superlative here and you get the idea.

The weather in the altiplano turns on a dime. It is not uncommon to alternate between shorts, t-shirt and hat and gloves in the same hour. On the way back I lost sight of Oliver ahead and became lost in inky blackness and a hail storm ensued. It was not long after that I discovered the iPod also works as a flash light and that perhaps it made good sense to never leave home again without a head lamp.

I think everyone except for those with Amayra blood froze that night. If the cold didn't interrupt your sleep the rolling thunder and lighting storm saw to it. Waking up to an early morning hail storm we headed towards the playa for the first boat off the island.

Next up La Paz.