Cruising on Lake Titicaca
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2007
1
17
36
Trip End
Ongoing
Puno, Peru
Monday, September 3, 2007
After we had picked up some sugar, rice and colouring pencils as gifts for our host family, we headed to our boat and were given the itinery by our guide Juan. Our group was small (about 15 people) and friendly from all over the place (France, Aussie, Hong Kong, Germany, Belguim and the UK) and luckily our common language was English - so info was provided for us in native tongue - excellent.
First we headed 30 minutes out to The Uros - there are 40 islands made of Totara (lake weed), which are home to about 1000 inhabitants. Most of them are quite small - and are constantly under maintenance as inhabitants plump up the ever decaying islands with new layers of weed (islands last several years)
Boating on Lake Titicaca
. They even eat the totara (peeling the reeds like a banana) which is full of calcium, and the people have beautiful white teeth to prove it. The islands are amazing - soft and spongey as you would imagine - a real childhood dream island! There are look-out towers, houses, and rafts all made from totara - like something from Peter Pan. And although the islands now cater for tour groups constantly coming through - the people were very kind and gave us a really informative demonstration explaining exactly how the islands are made - a fascinating way of life! Because the people from the Uros do not walk very often at all - they have large upper bodies and are unable to walk far on dry land (hence it was useless when the Inca´s tried to recruit them to fight - they couldnt even walk far). They also only marry with others from their island - or friends islands, which I would guess adds to the rheumatism that is commonly found in the island people.
It was a awesome to be taken on one of the totara boats (very cool) and we then set off in our motor boat on the 3 hour journey to Amantani Island. Amantani has 9 communities and about 3000 inhabitants. Although this island has been doing tourist homestays for several years - it is still very primitive - it is mainly women on the islands, as men are often away in Lima or Cusco studying or working (never the women)
Hannah and our host (who loves guys)
. So the men are dressed far more modernly, and the women still wear traditional full skirts and clothes - especially to greet arriving guests. We were billeted out - and then followed our host (Jakeline) up the sunny winding paths to our mud block home. At first I thought Jakeline was very shy - although in retrospect I think that tourists come and go each day - and Jakeline was more concerned with finding herself a hubbie! Paul and I found this hillarious in the end. She hardly spoke a word to us - although everytime we passed a local male - Jakeline would stop and talk and laugh and touch arms flirtaciously! We spent more time with the little girl Jenny - who lived at our homestay. Children are amazing - they are the same the world over - and before lunch Paul and I spent about an hour shooting hoops (the hoop was made of an old tire hitched up with a length of wood - resourceful!) and then teaching her hop scotch - before a meal of quinoa soup (yum) and pototoes, potatoes and more potatoes (boiled - there are over 4000 varieties here!) was served for us. Another thing about Jenny was how strong her stomach must be (thinking of how careful we are to wash hands, drink bottled water etc.), as we played she would stick her apple down in the dirt whereever (gringo hygiene alarm bells went off in my head) - amongst the chickens and rabbits running round the yard even! Now that would be a great stomache to have on our travels
Sun set on Amantani Island
!After lunch Paul and I chilled out in the sun - the island is terribly peaceful and pretty - and the lake is far more like an ocean. As primitive as it is here, without the chaos of cars, noise and the city, it is easy to see the appeal for the islands locals.
Jakeline then took us up to the meeting point - where we joined the group to walk to the peak of the island and see the sunset from the Pachatata (earth father) temple ruins. As suspected it became VERY cold, very quickly - and it was difficult to find any shelter (and the sunset was far less spectacular than the amazing daytime view) - so we retreated to our homestay early. Jakeline and little Jenny came to meet us in the dark - however half way back Jakeline left us to chat to more local males - while little 7 year old Jenny took us through garden plots and round dirt tracks all the way back to our homestay (we would have been truely lost in the dark without her!). We jumped in more thermals - into our sleeping bags and waited to get the call up for dinner. Our room was obviously specially made (from adobe mudbricks) for tourist homestays - and it was definately respectable with plently of blankets to fight off the freezing cold night.
The kitchen of our home stay
Dinner was once again soup (which the family ate with their hands - now thats talent!) - more potatoes and rice - and I felt embarrassed as the kind mum/chef busted me flicking unwanted potatoes onto Pauls plate. Jakeline turned up late and I could hear male voices in a nearby adobe room - and she kept whisking out the kitchen door huge helpings of the dinner (3 times the size of ours!) - she was obviously entertaining some males! You had to laugh.
Well Paul and I were then supposed to dress up in the local costume - and head to a disco - to dance with the locals (a very touristy part of the tour package) and as keen as I was to see Paul in the local costume, the freezing dark night - and with little electricity - we ended up getting back into our sleeping bags and playing 20 questions and fell asleep at about 8.30pm!
In the morning we had breakfast again in the mud hut - 2 pancakes with nothing else - no liquid - which is incrediably hard to get down in the morning - we said a a big thank you to our homestay cook and Jenny - and then Jakeline was more than happy to take us back to the whalf by 7.45am to meet the group and head off to the other tourist island of Taquile for lunch.
Taquile was once again very pretty and as we climbed high on the islands ridge and looked down at the rocky shore and aqua water, I thought it was almost like photo´s of the mediterranean I´ve seen (or perhaps i just dreaming now!)
The reed islands
. We had lunch in a local restaurant (more quinoa soup and lake trout) with a kickarse view of the lake - lovely.As we took the motorboat back - another 3 or more hours - I almost died when the engine cut out about half an hour from the dock...I was thinking ¨No way - not a broken down bus and now a broken down boat?¨ Funnily enough there was a couple of nice English girls on the boat who were also on our bus the day before - and we decided that it was a travelling combination that was obviously a little unlucky. However - after a little banging - the boat started up again - and we arrived back in freezing Puno. Another less than lukewarm drizzle shower - dinner and bed. Bolivia tomorrow - I´m a little nervous. We have an early bus (7.15am) across the boarder - heres hoping it all goes smoothly!
Lots of Love xo
