Puno, Uros Islands, Amantanì, Taquile (Peru), Copacabana, Isla del Sol, La Paz, Uyuni (Bolivia)

Leaving Cusco after such an experience and with my whole daypack and all its contents wet was not an easy task...but I managed to get on a bus to Puno through amazingly beautiful landscape and little villages scattered around...R and I made it to Puno after nightfall, found a place to stay and proceeded to feed our empty stomachs. Puno seemed like a convenient jumping point to explore the Titicaca Lake, compact enough that you can walk everywhere, but not aesthetically appealing, especially if compared with Cusco! The next day I met again with K and the three of us got on a boat on the Titicaca to visit several islands. 
The first stop was to pay a visit to the Uros Islands, or floating islands, since their inhabitants, who used to live on boats (each boat hosted a family), built entire islands out of totora reeds. The roots are about 1 meter deep, on top of which they lay totora reeds for another meter, making the "ground" we walked on about 2 meter deep, while the lake is about 20 meter deep. All of this was explained to us during our visit to the second island, where a guy showed us how each o the smaller pieces which form an island are tied together and then anchored to the bottom of the lake wherever the islanders decide to stay. Walking on such ground was vey unusual as it feels squishy and you almost think you're going to sink, but of course it's all well done! Their articrafts as well as their houses and boats are quite the sight...we also visited a family's house that sleeps 2 parents and 3 children...I'm not too sure where, because the sleeping space was very limited! What I noticed immediately was a huge swat of flies everywhere, the smell pervading the small place (similar to the ways barns smell, but with a different twist to it that I cannot explain! This is also what most "indigenous people" smelled like on buses by the way!) and a radio and a very primitive tool similar to a TV! The woman said that Fujimori (Peru's former president) had donated solar panels to them! There was one right outside their house...but what I noticed first was a huge pile of plastic bottles...she said they used them to build their boats...they also made us wear their traditional costumes and of course pretty much forced us to buy some of their articrafts! 
Then we proceeded to get back on the boat and spent 3 beautiful hours slowly moving on the lake, enjoying the beautiful day, the incredible sights and the breeze on the deck! (We should have known better: the sun at 3830 meters above sea level is always brutal!) We eventually reached our destination for the day and night: the island of Amantanì. We followed a local woman to her house, found our room and then waited for our lunch...I was quite surprised at how easy it was to explain to her that I didn't eat fish and that I was more than happy to settle for a fried egg! After lunch and a siesta we walked to the main square where we ran into 2-3 big tour groups and then continued uphill for the top of the islands, where there are temples to the Pachamama and the Pachatata, Mother and Father Earth, at over 4150 meters!!! On our way down we found a soccer field and, although it was almost dark, we challenged the locals to a quick game! We didn't yet know what we had signed up for, but I guess that's what you get when you have an Italian, an Argentinean, a Japanese, an Ecuadorian and a Peruvian guy!!! Of course the altitude killed us before our opponents did, and it looked like they were 5 times faster than us...it felt like your fastest moves were still in slow motion! We ended up losing 2-0 and had to swallow our pride, although it was a balanced game overall.
After another great meal cooked by our host mother, we got dressed up in traditional clothes (a thick poncho and a typical winter hat) and headed down to the center for a traditional dance in a store turned into a ballroom.
The next day we left for Taquile, our last island before making it back to Puno. The stairs up to the center were pretty steep, but the views and the main square were worth it! On our boat ride back we all opted to sit or lay inside and not expose ourselves to any more sun rays! Once back in Puno, it was time to relax, we ate at a chifa (their version of a Chinese restaurant) and then went to bed early.
The next morning we crossed the border into Bolivia to reach Copacabana, a nice little touristy town on the Bolivian side of the Titicaca Lake. The rest of the day was spent visiting the famous sanctuary of the "Virgen de Copacabana" which is very popular because she supposedly protects travelers and their vehicles; we also checked out the rest of town and hiked up the Cerro Calvario, a nice little mountain with 14 stages of the cross and a beautiful view of the town and its bay! The most interesting part was watching the locals in their rituals at the top of the mountain. Everyone had some space on the ground that was arranged to look like their ideal house: some plants, a plastic house, a plastic car, some people even had a toy computer! Of course sizes and colors varied, and everything was bought at some stalls along the way...the rite consisted in opening many bottles of beer, spray one's house and desired possessions, then drink some...then light up some firecrackers in the middle of it all...then pour some clear liquid (holy water? pure alcohol?) over everything...then chew on as many coca leaves as possible...then more beer, more coca leaves, some cigarettes, and so on and so forth! 
We also witnessed a lady empty out the trash cans in a peculiar way...she lay out her "towel" to collect some of the trash and dispose of it, but before doing that she inspected every single bottle before dumping it down over 100 meters into the bay! That included a 2 liter soda bottle, and various glass beer bottles...it was quite shocking!
Besides all of the interesting things going on arounds, K and I were able to enjoy the sunset from up there...the next day we took a boat to Isla del Sol, another island on the Titicaca on the Bolivian side. After finding a place to stay we proceeded to take a tour of the island with M and A that we had randomly met again in our boat...the island was quite hilly, there seemed to be more donkeys than people, which is good if you want to escape tourists, but it's not so nice when you try to walk around and all paths are covered in donkey poop!
The locals seemed as unfriendly as they were back in Copacabana, and they were quick to charge tourists money, yet they were useless at giving directions, there was not even a single sign, and the money paid "to enter their communities" only seemed to go straight to them and give them money so that they didn't have to work rather than it being used to provide better services...all of this I'd later find out to be typical of Bolivia, where you're always charged money for small things that should be included, and despite paying, there are no services and the money does not seem to support or develop anything that the locals and/or tourists could benefit from. 
Yet, the atmosphere on the island was pretty special, and it was a nice way to escape the tourist crowds of Copacabana...so much that K decided to spend New Year's Eve there. I instead got on a bus to La Paz...quite an interesting ride as we had to pass an 800m long strait: everyone had to get off the bus and get onto a passenger boat, while the bus itself boarded some sort of cargo raft to make it across...once in La Paz I quickly realized that everyone had played it safe because of NYE and had reservations, while I was just hoping to show up and find a place...at The Point I was able to help out with advertising the hostel's NYE party and could use their facilities and crash on their couch for free for that night, since they were fully booked! That way I got the chance to see many parts of the city that I had not yet visited to give out fliers for the party! Little did they know I would actually end up not attending the party...haha
My own NYE party consisted of a 2 liter bottle of lemonade and a lookout high above the city from where I was able to see all the fireworks that were going on in different parts of the city and that lasted almost  an hour! It reminded me of what a city under siege looked like on TV, and it looked even more impressive because of the city's special setting between two hills.
The next day I got to meet up with L and his parents who gave me a tour of some parts of town that were too far from where I was staying, yet beautiful and very interesting, while very different from the idea I had in my head of what La Paz was like...I also got to visit El Valle de la Luna, an area south of the city that was full of impressive rock formations, which reminded me of Zabriskie Point in the Death Valley: very impressive! I also got a personal city tour by car thanks to L, and we checked out some lookouts around town.
The next day it was time for some adventure sports: mountain biking down what the locals call El Camino de la Muerte, for short The Death Road! It's an old road between La Cumbre at 4700m and Coroico at 1100m that used to have the highest number of fatalities as far as cars and trucks are concerned, mainly because it's 3.2m wide and it's between the mountain and cliffs as high as 700-800m!!! Now things have improved for traffic since a new road has been built, and the old road is taken over by a bunch of MTB companies who offer the same excursion I went on. It had not hit us till we got out of the van and it was freezing cold and extremely foggy/cloudy at 4700m where we started! It was overwhelming, but at the same time the clouds covered the precipice amd helped us not think about what was next to the road! The first part was pure asphalt, so that we could get used to handling our full suspension MTB's with hydraulic brakes...after 30 or so minutes the old, scary, unpaved road started, and that's where you needed to make sure you knew when you were going too fast or where the turns were sharp, because there was no second chance there, no guard rails, nothing...getting off the road on the left side meant falling off for 400, 500 or more meters down, which means dying...falling on the side of the mountain was not as dangerous, but still not too safe...one guy in our group went down against the mountain and his right elbow didn't look that good for the rest of the day! Luckily we had 2 good guides, and the front one tried to go as fast as the fastest among us, while in the back we had one more guide on a bike, a driver for the van and a mechanic...useful especially when my rear derailleur split open halfway through the Death Road! haha So I got a new bike which was a bit too small and to which I wasn't used to, so from that point on I slowed down a bit...the front of our group had some very good guys, and even one girl, who were awesome at cornering and choosing the right path, which I assume that's generally what  downhill MTB is about! We had several breaks to regroup, take pictures, get explanations from the guide, and we even had a snack! Sometimes we rode through waterfalls, as if the road alone was not dangerous enough, and we were filmed several times, so I'm really curious to see what the pictures and videos look like! The ride was overall about 64km, it took us about 5-6 hours I think: we started at 4700m where it was freezing and wet, we ended it in the jungle at 1100m where it was humid, hot and ridden with bugs of course! The terrain also was very varied, so it was a lot of fun!!!
The prize for surviving it was a warm shower, a swimming pool and a large lunch buffet!!! 
That same evening, despite a landslide and some other surprises along the road back to La Paz, I was able to get back in time to run to get my bag, run to the bus terminal and catch a bus to Uyuni...I got the last ticket as people were already boarding the bus, yet it was the best seat in the house: the very front seat above the driver, where you can stretch your legs and you have great views in front of you! You can also stick your camera out of the window and take awesome pictures, which I did, around dawn since we were in the middle of nowhere! Despite me having the best seat, the road for the whole 12 hour ride was as bumpy as one can imagine, and our big bus was shaking all night long! Combine that with the fact that I had not had the chance to grab some food for dinner, because I was rushing to get on the bus, so the only time we stopped for a break, around 2am, I was hungry and got a sandwich from a food stall that included a fried egg (I had tried to explain to her that I wanted only fries and salad, but it was too strange for her to understand it, and I was tired and hungry!)...well, I assume that the egg was not cooked for long enough (it seemed to me like it was less than a minute), so it definitely did not settle well in my stomach, and the bus' WC was pretty gross to begin with, but I couldn't resist any longer so before getting off in the morning I dropped some souvenirs in there! haha
My luck continued, or turned around should I say, considering my stomach situation, when I was able to get on a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni and other attractions along the route within the first 30 minutes I was in town; what's even better is that the tour would leave an hour later, it was the company that several travelers had recommended, and K was part of our group of 6 people!!! haha What a coincidence!
The tour was 3 days and 2 nights and included so many things that it's impossible to remember them all! We had a driver/guide and his wife who was the co-pilot and cook. Our group had an American, two Swiss-Germans, two Japanese and I. We soon realized everyone else in town was on a tour too, as at each stop one could see at least 20-25 LandCruisers! Our first stop was a train cemetery, where the attraction was old, rusty trains that used to carry silver and other minerals from the Bolivian mines to the ports in Chile from where they were shipped out. Our second stop was a town that had all sorts of souvenirs made of salt, of course! Next was the main sight: the mighty salt flats! We stopped several times to take pictures, to get out of the car and walk through puddles of salt. This time of the year the salt flats are not dry because it's rainy season, so they look like big lakes in some parts, with pretty reflections of the sky, the clouds and the sun. At first it looks like one is surrounded by snow, and the white surface is definitely blinding! Later, we stopped at a hotel that is entirely made of salt, and then an island in the middle of the salt flat that is full of cacti; some of them were 5-6 meter high! The view from the top was spectacular: all I could see were mountains and then white all around. After lunch we got back in the car and drove for segeral hours after leaving the salt flats to visit other attractions: volcanoes, lagoons, deserts, and strange rock formations! We called it a day when we reached the town of San Juan...well, if one really wants to call it a town! We had basic rooms, a basic shared bathroom, no electricity except for two hours at night, and we had to pay 5Bs. for the shower! Our food was cooked on gas stoves, we had tea and biscuits as soon as we got there and then dinner two hours later. Inbetween the two snacks we walked a few minutes "out of town" to check out the sunset, which was amazing, in a place thst our guide had said was full of caves. Only afterthe sun had set, as we were walking back and it was getting dark, did we notice that each cave had bones and skulls inside!
The next day we did more driving to see various colored lagoons and tons of different flamingos, in addition to vicuñas, alpacas and llamas, which are all very similar!
After lunch we drove through colored deserts, more volcanoes and more lagoons, almost all very impressive. We also had to argue with some officials working at what they called a national reserve, since as of a few days ago the fee to simply drive trough went up from 30 to 150Bs (about $22)!!! Paying so much for driving through super bumpy roads, when bathrooms and showers, when present, were extra and power was kn for just a few hours a day seemed to a lot of us like legalized robbery, and I made sure to give the official a piece of my mind...but in the end, as most people were paying, we had no choice but doig the same...waiting longer would have meant risking getting to the next place and not finding a place to stay and/or a place to eat! That's how efficient and organized the "national reserve" is! The following and last day of the tour the alarm was at 4 in order to reach the geysers when they were still going strong...so we did get there before sunrise, and it was freezing, but still quite impressive! The first one we saw must have been at least 10-12m high! The next one was as strong and as loud as a fire idrant, and it was surrounded by several sulphuric pools. Next was some hot springs where we soaked for about 30 minutes in a spectacular setting of mountains, flamingos, lagoons and mountains. After breakfast we kept driving for a desert and a green lagoon at the foot of a volcano that reached almost 5000m. We proceeded to drop off 4 of our friends at the border with Chile and then two of us with the guide and the cook continued through scenic valleys and super bumpy roads to stop in the little town of Villamar for a huge lunch, since there was only two of us left; nevertheless, to continue our tradition of finishing everything we werr given, we swallowed everything and even looked to our neighbors'tables which were still full of food! 
Our last two stops on our way back to Uyuni were some more interesting rocks (among which a pregnant lady, a condor and an Inca face) and the little town of San Cristobal, where everything was shut so all the tourists just ended up sitting around the main square while their drivers took a break from the bumpy driving!
We got back to Uyuni 30 minutes earlier than expected, which rarely happens and which I thought was going to be perfect because it gave me an hour till the buses for Potosì and Sucre would leave...I just forgot to factor in the huge crowds trying to leave this town, and most importantly the huge number of Argentinian mochileros everywhere, traveling in groups of 5-6, sometimes even 10 or more; to make matters worse, the buses leaving from here are half the size of normal buses, which ruined all my plans and forced me to spend an extra 24 hours in this town without wi-fi, cold drinks or ice cream of any sort...just a lot of Argentinians!!! This morning, after getting a chance to rest, shower and charge my gadgets, I managed to find a noon bus for Potosì...except that the bus ended up not showing up because of mechanical problems, and I'm spending an additional 6 hours in this lovely town! Since I'll be getting there in the middle of the night, if we make it that is (here the saying is "todo es posible, nada es seguro"), I tried to call up a few places on my book that seemed to be the best...everything is full! That's when I realized that I'll have to deal with the huge crowds of Argentinians for the remainder of my trip, as most of them are heading north to Peru just like me! Lovely!
Nothing else to say aboyt Uyuni except that I can't wait to go somewhere else, see something else and not have to deal with huge crowds of people taking over buses and hostels, playing guitar, drinking mate and being loud! haha
Actually, the silver mines of Potosì and the architecture of Sucre should be wonderful, so in order to enjoy all of that I had to book accommodations there in advance, and I'n now going to look for a mine tour for tomorrow morning! As soon as I find a wi-fi hotspot I'll post all of this!