Puno - Lago Titicaca (Pronounced Titi-jaja by locals)
So, after our walking intensive adventure in Colca Canyon, we headed to Puno for the sitting intensive part of the trip. Just to give you an idea of the amount of sitting here is what our itinerary was:
1. 6 Hour Bus Ride from Arequipa to Puno
2. 1.5 Hour Boat Ride to Islas de Los Uros
3. 2 Hours, 40 Minute Boat Ride from Uros to Amantani
4. 2 Hour Boat Ride from Amantani to Taquile
5. 3 Hour Boat Ride from Taquile back to Puno
6. 6 Hour Bus Ride from Puno back to Arequipa
Lots. Of. Sitting.
But don't worry, we also did more high altitude walking, which never seems to get easier.
To start out our journey in Puno, we were told there were some miradors to walk to for a cool view of the city. First, we were told the Huajsapata mirador was close and easy to get to. We start walking there and notice a group of half a dozen or so teenagers headed up to the mirador. We start up, with a little suspicion, then a local asks us where we're going and when we say up to the lookout, she said it is best not to visit that one and to take a taxi to the Condor mirador. So we took her advice. We didn't need to tempt fate. So, we catch a cab for S/.3 over to the Condor. Well, sort of. The taxi pulled up to the sign that said go this way...you follow the arrow over with your eyes and it is just stairs going straight UP. So we climbed the million stairs at the very high altitude, I think Puno is like 3000m above sea level, but don't quote me on that. If I had internet, I'd check my facts. (Presently in the car on the way back to Huanuco - hopefully only 2 more hours! We left at 6am...) It was beautiful once we got up there, and just in time for sunset too. The islands on the lake were too far out to see, but you get an idea of the layout of the city of Puno and the expanse of the Lake. It's huge. The condor statute at the top was also fun to see. There's not much else do to in the city besides eat, try Huajsapata, shop for souveniers, check out the main square, and enjoy the art in the streets.
The next 2 days, we spent out on the Lake and at the islands: Uros, Amantani, and Taquile. Uros is a floating island, meaning that it is a man-made island made of reeds, but it is anchored down, so they don't float into Bolivia - need a passport for that. We got a quick explanation for how they grow the reeds to be big enough to support an entire community. There are about 30 floating islands. The one that we visited had 10 families living there. Each family has their own hut and we had the opportunity to visit Elsa's. She told us about life on the island. They share 3 kitchen huts between the families. They have a separate island to go to the bathroom about 1km away, so the potty water doesn't contaminate their potable water as they use the water straight out of the lake for drinking and cooking. If I'm not mistaken, the water in the Lake is salty. The main source of work is making crafts to sell to the tourists and fishing. The Canadians and Australians contributed the King Fish and Trout to the Lake's fish species. Unfortunately, they are bigger and are eating the native fish. Fortunately, I didn't feel bad about helping reduce their trout population - YUM. Their main mode of transportation is obviously boat - they have motor boat, but they also have reed boats - called balsas (sp?) - but more commonly known as the Mercedes Benz. Elsa told us they go into Puno about once a week to get milk and other things they can't maintain on the island. The kids go to school on another island, which happened to be about 5km away from the island we visited. The floating islands became home to many during the Spanish conquests to escape their rule. Interesting stuff!
The Island of Amantani is where we stayed the night with Luisa's family in the Santa Rosa Community. Her house is no easy walk from the dock, another uphill adventure. Amantani is the largest of the Peruvian islands (the Sun Island is the biggest, but it is on the Bolivia side) with approximately 2500 inhabitants, divided into 10 communities - it's bigger than Lamoni, IA! Haha. We stayed at Luisa's with 2 other girls from our tour, Amanda and Jo. It was cool to have some different company. Fortunately, walking up to Luisa's house got up about halfway up to the Temple of Pachatata (Father Earth), which is 4145m above sea level. From there we could see the Boolivian side of the Lake. The Lake is split, 60/40, but depends on who you ask who has the 60 and who has the 40, Peruvians or Bolivians. Also, they joke that Peru is the "Titi" part, which doesn't have any significance, and that Bolivia is the "caca" part of the name, which you can figure out why. Friendly rivalry. Another note, the Peruvians speak Quechua, while the Bolivians speak Imari (they speak Imari on the floating islands, primarily). Everyone seems to know Spanish too. That night, we had a little celebration where we dressed up in typical island dress and went dancing (or rather, running in circles doing our best to twirl our skirts)!!
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| L-R: Me, Melissa, Jo, and Amanda - Luisa got all us dressed and tied up in our skirts, shirts, belts, and head wrap/shawl. |
The Island of Taquile is known for its textiles and their knitting men. Before lunch, we had a presentation on the hats the men wear. First, they are shaped like a flower on the island, sort of like a bell. The single men wear red and white hats and are more ornate and finely made than the married man's hat. Women decide whether someone is husband material in part baased on how well they made their hat. Married men wear a red hat. The boys are taught how to knit when they are very young. They showed us one thing, like a back support wrap, that was made using women's hair. Weird. They knit with the smallest needles I have ever seen. They have to use incredibly fine yarn. As the people wander around on the island they work on spooling (is that a word?) their string. Good way to multi-task.
The final hurrah on the islands was the delicious lunch. We had quinoa soup, trout, and coca/muna mixed tea. If you ever go, I highly recommend that lunch.
When we got back to Puno, we met up with Amanda and went out to dinner. Turns out the Colombian girls on our tour picked the same restaurant, so we sort of had dinner with them too. I got in another alpaca dish, it's really quite good. I would recommend eating that over guinea pig, if you're up for something a little different. We also had some tasty sours - Coca, Muna, and regular.
Before we headed to our bus, we headed out of Puno to visit Sillustani (another hour long drive, btw). It has the ruins of the tombs of the pre-Incans (Kollas, Lupacas, & Pakaje) and Incans. The pre-Incans used smaller rocks to build cylindrical structures to enclose the dead. The Incans, with their things for really big rocks, took it a step farther and encase the pre-Incan structures in another layer of smooth, I think volcanic, rock. Incans averaged about 2m - 6ft tall and must have been ridiculously strong to construct the things they built without modern technology.
Vidal was our guide for Sillustani. He explained a lot more about the lake, than our guide did on the lake, which was cool to hear about. The best part is the stories. Vidal grew up on the Uros island, so he had more insight into the beliefs and traditions of the lake people. Apparently, for a long time, the people believed Lake Titicaca was formed much like the Noah's Ark story - there was a city at the bottom of the lake, but they were misbehaving, so it flooded and the survivors had to restart civilization. Also, I'm not sure I mentioned it in my Cusco blog, but the Incans believed the condors represented the heavens, pumas represented the earth, and snakes represented the underworld. We asked which one the people feared most, and Vidal said the condors, which surprised me. Anyway, he told us this story about a community back in the day that had people that were human for during the day and condor form during the night. One of these condor people fell in love with a woman. Her community was none too pleased about this and tried to keep them apart. However, the condor man was not about that, so he took her to his cave far away from the people. He would go to the community to get food and other necesseties for the woman to survive. Eventually, they had some condor/human babies. It became suspicious what the condor man was doing when he went into the city for supplies, so one day the woman's father followed the condor man back to his cave, where he found his daughter and grandkids. The father returned his family back to the city and plucked out all of the kids' feathers. The condor man was not happy about this and destroyed the city. Instilled quite a bit of fear.
There isn't a ton to do in Puno and on the Lake (too cold to swim), but it's a place with a lot of character, just gotta find it, and of course, lots of history. We met a lot of cool people and saw some beautiful places, so definitely worth the trip.
~nos vemos~
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