We ran into an Aymari Indian called Maximo Catari close to the shore on the southern part of Lake Titicaca. We asked him if he could take us across to Isla Suriqui, and although he wasn't a fluent Spanish speaker we soon learnt that we were talking to one of a band of unique men with knowledge of building traditional reed boats - a dying art. Amongst other projects, he had been involved in the construction of the Ra II - a reed ship which was used by Thor Heyerdahl to prove that early Americans had the ability to cross the Atlantic, in a similar fashion to his famous Kon-tiki on which he crossed the Pacific in 1947. We felt privileged that we had such an authentic guide to navigate the reed beds through the islands where these vessels were constructed, and to be introduced to the people who live there and built them.

This made up for missing the floating reed islands in Perú which have become very touristy, but we did spend a few days in Copacabana and hiked the length of nearby Isla del Sol whose less visited northern end was very primitive.

We have now made the crossing to the east side of the lake, where we had to get off our bus while it went on a barge, and we travelled alongside on a little speedboat. We are getting very close to La Paz now.

Posted from La Paz, 11th July 2012.