Lake Titicaca
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Puno,
Peru
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
I had the most amazing weekend. The adventure began on Friday evening
at 11:00 when I met 4 of my friends at the bus station for an
overnight bus to Puno, about a 6 hour drive away. By about 11:15 the
bus had broken down and we spent an hour by the side of the road while
the driver fixed it. Have no idea what was wrong. It actually was a
good thing because it meant that we had longer on the bus to sleep!
When we arrived we were picked up by the travel agency that we had
booked our tour with. They took us to their office. We asked to use
the bathroom and they sent us upstairs to some older man's apartment.
After we had all freshened up his wife showed up with bread and the
man made coffee and he invited the five of us to eat breakfast with
them! We had a nice chat. He told us all about the volunteer work he
does on one of the islands we were going to visit. Then he and his
wife left us alone in their apartment and went out. We have no idea
who they wore but it was a great time!
After breakfast we left for our tour of Lake Titicaca. We went on a
short boat ride to the Floating Islands of Uros. They are made
entirely of reeds! The Uros people used to live on the mainland. When
the Incas were trying to conquer them they moved away...into the lake.
Apparently they are continually building new, or reconstructing, their
islands because the reeds rot away. Their houses are made of the
reeds, as are their boats. They also use the reeds as medicine and as
food. Some lady on our tour asked to taste one and all of a sudden we
each had a reed to eat. I tried a little bit of it. Pretty gross and I
was scared I was going to get sick from it. But, I was fine.
We left the Uros islands and headed to Amatani island, our home for
the night. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by our 'Mama's' for the
evening and taken to our houses. I stayed with two of my friends. Our
Mama was Olga. We climbed an ENORMOUS hill to our house, all of us
panting and out of breath, wondering why we had chosen to come here.
However, when we stopped for a break and turned around, we saw why.
Amatani is the most beautiful and peaceful place I have ever been. You
have a view of the lake, and far in the distance you can see the
mountains of Bolivia, the tallest of which are snowcapped. There are
no cars or machines on the island. The only noises we could hear
(apart from our panting from the climb!) were children's voices,
people singing, and animals walking by through the brush. When we
finally made it to our house we were shown to our room which had the
most beautiful view of the lake. The ceilings were pretty low. Luckily
I am short enough that I was able to stand up straight but even I had
to duck to get through the door!
We walked to the top of the mountain to watch the sunset. It was
beautiful, although not the most peaceful, seeing as there were at
least 100 tourists there watching with us. But, once the sun went
down, it quited down and the tourists spread out as we each made our
way down. Of course only 2 of the 5 of us remembered to bring our
flashlights so it was a difficult trek back down to our houses. Not
surprisingly, I tripped and fell. Luckily I just got a bad bruise but
did not break anything!
There was no running water or electricty. Olga cooked our meals over a
fireplace. We had dinner by candlelight. For lunch we had soup with
potatoes followed by potatoes and cheese. For dinner we had soup with
potatoes, followed by rice and noodles. For breakfast we had rice with
eggs and bread. (Not a place for carb watchers!)
After dinner Olga dressed us up in traditional clothes-an embroidered
top, two skirts, a big belt, and a big shawl and we went to a fiesta.
I felt like marshmallow with so many clothes on but I understand why
they where so much...helps you not feel the FREEZNING cold! We danced
a bit and then the local people did a few dances for us. We were all
pretty tired by 9:00 and went home to sleep!
In the morning after breakfast we headed to Taquile Island. It is
another beautiful island in the lake. We had a huge walk up to the top
of the island to the plaza. There was some sort of fiesta going on in
the Plaza and we got to watch some more traditional dancing. However,
it all seems pretty similar to me. It sounds like the same music being
played over and over again with the people dancing in a circle. Kind
of looks like doing the Hora over and over again. On this island the
single women wear 20 skirts. They looked like they had huge hoops on
under their skirts because they poofed out so much. However each skirt
is a different color so when they spin it looks really cool!
We had some delicious trout for lunch (with rice and french fries of
course) and then walked down over 500 steps to get to the main port
where our boat was waiting for us. We then had a 3 hour ride back to
Puno on the boat. We opted to stay the night in Puno rather than take
another overnight bus to get back to Cusco. We found a lovely hostel
(with freezing cold water...I don´t think I have ever been so dirty
but I could not get in the cold shower!) had a nice dinner with some
other friends from our school who were also in Puno, and then spent
several hours dancing at a nightclub! The ride back to Cusco went
smoothly in the morning and we made it back to Cusco just a few
minutes late for our classes in the afternoon.
All is going well in Cusco. However, I must have done something wrong
because now the hot water at my host family´s house is broken. Luckily
I was able to shower after my weekend but haven´t been able to since!
They promise me that it will be working by tonight! Spanish class is
going well. I am getting better and am able to carry on
conversation-in the present tense only. They promise we will learn the
future this week and the past next week!
