Our train was mixed passenger and freight and one first-class coach was amply sufficient to accommodate everybody.
Shortly after ten o’clock, we stopped for breakfast at a primitive little railway inn, where, although we had good appetites and were accustomed to native fare, the food seemed exceptionally bad, and some of it was quite inedible. Whether it was the result of this or not, several of the passengers soon began to show signs of mountain sickness. Arequipa is 7500 feet above the sea, but Crucero Alto, a water tank station, which we reached about half past two, is 14,666 feet, so there was good excuse for any one who is at all affected by rarefied atmosphere.
The eastern edge of the plateau brought us to the two mountain lakes of Saracocha and Cachipascana. Although there was no green in the landscape, the snow-capped mountains that surround the lakes lent an atmosphere of romance and charm to the otherwise desolate view. Continuing eastward, the train went rapidly down grade for two thousand feet, stopping occasionally at little Indian villages until it reached the important railway junction of Juliaca. Here the passengers for Cuzco left us, and in the dusk we turned south and hurried over the remaining thirty miles of level road. On reaching the wharf at Puno, we found to our dismay that the steamer scheduled to cross Titicaca this evening was the Yavarí, the smallest and oldest on the lake, and the first steam vessel to be propelled at an altitude of 12,500 feet above sea-level. She had already received her full complement of freight, and her deck was covered with railway-ties brought from Oregon for the new Bolivia Railway System. It took but a few moments to get passengers and their luggage transferred from the train to the steamer, and before we realized it, we were plowing through the troubled waters of the highest large body of water in the world. The sky was beautifully clear and the stars shone with wonderful brightness, attracting us to spend the evening on deck, to the amazement of the natives who preferred to sit in the stuffy little dining saloon. It did not take us long to agree with them that it was too cold and damp to make the starlight very enjoyable.
Our slumbers were disturbed by a terrific thunder-storm that made the little Yavarí toss about like a cork. The rain descended in torrents and obliged us to close our porthole. Of course, it was not the first squall nor the worst that the stout little vessel had weathered, but out of consideration for her age, we had unpleasant dreams of swimming in the water of a lake which is so cold that none of the Indians who live on its banks and navigate their crazy balsas over its surface have ever learned how to swim.
We were up at daylight just in time to see the islands of Titicaca and Koati and the promontory of Copacavana, the old centre of civilization on the plateau. It is still the scene of many quaint Indian festivals. The ancient terraces are still used in slow rotation for raising crops. We passed quite close to the peninsula of Taraco which abuts from the eastern shore and is thickly populated. In fact, so far as we could see, all the valuable lands on the shores of the lake were cultivated to the limit.
Mr. Bandelier says there are probably more Indians here now than there were in the days before the Conquest, all the sentimentalists to the contrary notwithstanding.
The atmosphere was wonderfully clear, and with the aid of glasses, we could see people miles away going in and out of picturesque little churches, driving their cattle to pasture, tending crops, and working on the primitive threshing-floors where donkeys and oxen were treading out the barley. Occasionally the effect was heightened by a mirage that raised the shores up from the lake and enabled us to see new towns and villages. Far in the distance snow-covered mountains added to the charm of the scene.
On the marshy shores the fisherfolk began to embark in their balsas, those curious canoes, made of bundles of reeds tied together, quite comfortable when new but most disagreeable when water-logged. At one time we were able to count forty of them dotting the waters of the lake. Not less interesting was a species of wild duck or diver that amused us by swimming directly in the path of the steamer, then becoming suddenly frightened, and with the aid of its wings, running over the surface of the water with incredible swiftness.
Numerous as have been the travellers that have crossed the lake, and easy as it is of access, still Mr. Bandelier is able to write: “Lake Titicaca in most of its features is as unknown as the least visited of the inner African lakes. The shores are so indented and their topography is so complicated, that a coasting voyage of a year at least would be needed to achieve a complete investigation.”
There is only a narrow channel between the peninsula of Copacavana on the west and that of San Pedro on the east so that after one passes through the narrow straits of Tiquina, one loses sight of the great expanse of Titicaca and is in reality in a small lake at its southern end. It took us several hours to cross this, however, and it was noon before we entered the little artificial harbor of Guaqui. The only lake traffic that pays is freight and the boats run frequently, but irregularly, starting as soon as their loading of cargo is completed. One reads in the guide-books that they have a regular schedule. The natives say that you can never tell when the steamers will sail. As a matter of fact, it is usually possible to find out a day or two ahead from the railroad officials the hour and date of sailing.