There are no coastal boat services in Peru, but
in many areas - on Lake Titicaca and especially
in the jungle regions - water is the obvious
means of getting around. From Puno, on Lake
Titicaca, there are currently no regular
services to Bolivia by ship or hydrofoil (though
check with the tour agencies in Puno), but there
are plenty of smaller boats that will take
visitors out to the various islands in the lake.
These aren't expensive and a price can usually
be negotiated down at the port.
In the jungle areas motorized canoes come in two
basic forms: those with a large outboard motor
and those with a Briggs and Stratton peque-peque
engine. The outboard is faster and more
manoeuvrable, but it costs a lot more to run.
Occasionally you can hitch a ride in one of
these canoes for nothing, but this may involve
waiting around for days or even weeks and, in
the end, most people expect some form of payment.
More practical is to hire a canoe along with its
guide/driver for a few days. This means
searching around in the port and negotiating,
but you can often get a peque-peque canoe from
around $40-50 per day, which will invariably
work out cheaper than taking an organized tour,
as well as giving you the choice of guide and
companions. Obviously, the more people you can
get together, the cheaper it will be per person.
If you're heading downstream it's often possible
in the last resort to buy, borrow or even make a
balsa raft . Most of the indigenous population
still travel this way so it's sometimes possible
to hitch a lift, or to buy one of their rafts.
Riding with someone who's going your way is
probably better, since rafting can be dangerous
if you don't know the river well.
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