Lake Titicaca

I am on complete sensory overload. Today we are on the shores of Lake Titicaca in the Andean highlands some 13,000 ft. above sea level. We left La Paz yesterday and drove for seven hours to arrive at sunset at a magical hotel sitting alone on a penisula jutting out onto the lake.

The drive started in Bolivia and took us up and down and around the lake with snow covered mountains always in the background. Our Bolivian guide was a passionate and eloquent spokesperson for his country, always talking with reverence about his president, Mr. Evo Morales, and his concern for the native people.

After lunch we arrived at the border with Peru and mucho paper work--lots of stamping of papers on both sides by officials in dusty green uniforms in offices that looked unchanged since the ´50´s complete with a few tired dogs outside.

Then it was a few hours more past incredible vistas. Miles and miles of farmland--quinoa, corn, alfafa, fava beans, potatoes--stretching all the way out to the shores of the lake.

The lake is so huge that it feels in parts that you are driving along the ocean. But here we see wmen in colorful native dress--brilliantly colored full skirts, bowler or straw hats, long braided black hair with huge pompoms at the end of the braids--
carrying loads of reeds or alfalfa or potatoes--there are over 100 varieties--wrapped in shawls on their backs.

The color, the air, the water--it is almost too much to absorb.