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Hello everyone, I hope you're all enjoying some time off before NY.
I'm in Puno which is on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. The Lake is the largest and highest navigable lake in the world. It is fresh water and is so unbelievably vast..... we've spent the last 2 days on boat and have covered only15% of it's area!!
After a day of shopping in Cusco (yes... another one!) we got on a public bus to Puno. It was another brilliantly comfortable bus with a ton of leg room. The journey took around 6 hours and I was pretty sad to see the back of Cusco. Even Cusco in the rain is lovely. On the journey the bus went up to around 4300m and very close to the snow line. It was pretty amazing scenery.
We arrived in Puno in the middle of a massive thunder storm. The town is ugly, with a population of about 1 million, so it was depressing arriving after Cusco. It is at about 4000m but after Cusco the shock of altitude was not that bad. Catherine and I had some drinks to drown our sorrows….. Not the best move considering the next day was mainly to be spent on a boat….. ahhhh, but we survived!
Yesterday morning our group were picked up by tuk-tuks for a transfer to the port in Puno!!!! They were amazing fun. Catherine and I were sat on a tray seat in front of the driver (cycling!!! Poor man!). He put on some music for us and even though we didn't start at the front of our 6 tuk-tuk chain our speedy Gonzales soon made it to pole position! The drive was a bit scary because of the traffic from all directions, and even though we lost the lead a couple of times we ended up in first place.. I´d love to arrive like that to work everyday.
At the port our guide advised us to buy gifts for the host families we would be staying with on a Peninsula in the Lake. We bought rice, pasta, jam and some paints and paper. Next on to the boat on the shore of Titicaca. We had a private boat for our group of 10 with comfy seats inside and a roof that you get to via a scary ladder. The lake itself is a massive grey expanse which is so calm that it reflects the clouds in the sky. The boat was incredibly slow…. There must be come kind of law that governs the speed as all of the boats wereso ridiculously slow, I think I could swim faster!
After a long journey we made our first stop on Isla Taquile. This is a small island still on the Peruvian side of the lake. We climbed up a massive hill to get to the community and passed the most gorgeous lambs. In the community there are only about 100 families. They all farm and according to our guide have a perfect democracy! Voting for the island mayor is done by a show of hands from the whole population who congregate in the town square. All of the people we saw were in traditional dress. For men this means really finally woven hats with pom-poms on top. White if the man is single and fully coloured if he is married. There are also special hats for the mayor and other officials. If the man is off the island for any reason his oldest son wears the hat instead. The women also have outfits with a lot of multi-coloured pom-poms, again different if they are married or single. All of the clothes are really finally knitted… and all of the knitting is done by the boys. Apparently women are powerful in this society and rule the roost! Perfect!
After lunch we got back on the boat and went on to our overnight stay on the Peninsula of Chucuito. This is a tiny community who all farm. We were the only tourists there and we were greeted off of the boat by men in traditional dress and a band! The band played for us and then escorted us all the way to the centre of the community. The men here also wore a lot of pom-poms! Our group was split into our usual pairs and Catherine and I were introduced to Tomas… our host dad. He took us to his house……it is made of mud bricks and has a dirt floor. Catherine and I had a hut to ourselves with really basic beds and about a million blankets. Tomas asked us up to his hut where he lives with his wife. They are both 78 years old!!!! Their house was even more basic than our hut. It had exposed dirt walls and beds made from mud with reeds as mattresses. The community speak language that I've never even heard of, but understand Spanish as well. I used up all of my useful Spanish with Tomas pretty much immediately but we made do.
Our group was then invited to play football with the locals. I think they must have been given the afternoon off of work for our arrival. Tourists have only started coming to this community since October so it is pretty much untouched. The children are all gorgeous and very shy, but they liked having their pics taken. All of the people walk around in leather sandals and have filthy feet. I don't think I've ever seen such poverty but they are seemingly happy.
Tomas took Catherine and I back to his house for a dinner of quinoa soup and rice and pasta…. Carbohydrate central! We did our best to make conversation and met his wife who stayed in the kitchen. The kitchen was so basic. She was sat on the floor in the dried mud…
After dinner we were dressed up in traditional outfits. This involved 3 brightly coloured skirts each done up so tightly that breathing was difficult! The rest of our group were also dressed up by their families and we were taken ion the pouring rain to the school hall fordancing. It was exhausting and hilarious. Tomas danced so energetically that we could barely keep up. The kids were also dancing manically…. Sooo cute!
The toilet for our house was a whole in the ground in a mud hut… You have to look at the pic!
I slept really badly last night and almost fell out of bed. I think it must have been the storms overhead. And it's embarrassing to admit but I was a bit disturbed about the poverty. The people are so kind and friendly but life is so unfair. I wonder what impact the visits from the tourists will have on this community.
This morning after brekkie we got back on the boat and sailed to the floating islands. These are a group of about 30 islands made out of reeds. Everything on the islands is made out of reeds…. The houses, the floor, the boats….. amazing! We visited just1 island where 6 families live. If a family wants to move they just saw off their section of reeds and tow it to where they want to live!!! The people there are now experimenting with growing potatoes. Apart from this the diet is reeds (bread, flour….) and tiny trout and birds eggs. What is quite interesting is if you ask any of them what religion they are they say 7th Day Adventists… but in practice the floating church is apparently never used. Instead they worship the Lake and the Earth. The people again were very friendly and we paid to have a little trip on a reed boat. I had a go at rowing but wasn't nearly as effective as the women. Again women here are apparently more important than men.
So that was Lake Titicaca. By the Way, if you look at the pics you'll see it was really really cold. Why is it that all of these Peruvians have chosen to settle in such harsh environments?…. It's either a desert where it never rains, mountains at high altitude or a lake where is it freezing!!!
Happy New Year!!!!
We're off to La Paz tomorrow. I want to visit the open prison on NY eve but Catherine has rightly pointed out that this is a risky thing to do a few hours before she flies home. I'm sure we'll find a party though!
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