Lake Titicaca, Peru

Still recovering from the Salkantay trek, and sad to leave the lovely city of Cusco behind, we headed by bus to Puno, on the water-edge of Lake Titicaca. From here, we were taking a 2 day, 1 night boat tour of the Lake and its islands. Lake Titicaca is South America´s largest lake and one of the world´s highest navigable lakes at 3812m above sea level. With an overall surface area of just under 8,400 km squared, it´s maximum dimensions are 190km by 80km. It´s size was nothing compared to the Canadian great lakes, but the altitude meant the sun´s rays shimmered and reflected on the water making everything look bright and beautiful.



Our first stop on the boat tour was to visit the Uros people on the floating islands of water reeds. Yes, an entire population of Peruvian tribal folk had made their home upon matted water reeds that floated on the Lake Titicaca! We had heard and read about this, but still it defied our rational mind´s logic... water reeds that supported hundreds of people, their houses, kitchens and livestock (namely guinea pigs, a Peruvian delicacy)?! Sure enough, as we rounded the bay, we saw the yellow straw-like floating islands. We trod off the boat carefully but were surprised that the islands were quite stable.



We learnt how the Uros people wove the reeds together, replacing them from the top as the bottom layers disintegrated. They sang songs for us, showed us their handicrafts and even let us ride on their reed canoes. The Uros people speak Aymara, a language pre-dating Inca times. In fact, the Uros (from the Colla pre-Inca civilisation) fled the mainland and set up home on the Lake to escape the Inca spread. The floating islands were a little too touristy (as we had been warned) but quite remarkable to observe.



At lunchtime, we arrived at our second stop: Amantani island - a regular island within Lake Titicaca (not the floating reeds kind!). The residents of the islands were Inca descendents and spoke the original Inca language of Quechua. We were spending the afternooon, night and early morning on this island, staying with local families. Before disembarking the boat, our guide taught us some basic phrases in Quechua which we dutifully wrote down and repeated back to show respect to our hosts. We were immediately struck by the simple village life still in practice on Amantani. Very few properties had electricity and none were with water plumbing. The main economy was agriculture and fishing, but more recently tourism had taken a hold.



From the docks, we met Nicolas our host. A short walk later, and we were being shown to our simple room in their adobe (mud brick and white wash) home. Along with his wife, Nicolas had 4 daughters ranging from 3 to 8 years old. They were so excited to see us and after getting over the brief shy spell, they were begging for photos and to be picked up and swung about. Lunch with the family was a simple affair and we felt quite odd sitting in their kitchen eating twice the serving size of any of them. All eyes on us the foreigners, we tried some basic Spanish conversation to break the silence.



Later that afternoon, we joined the rest of our tour group to walk up to Pachatata (Father Earth) at a height of 4200m. From here, in spite of much wind and cold, we got great views over the Lake and on to Bolivia and the Cordillera snow-capped mountain range. By the time we made it back down, it was getting dark and Alkesh and I re-traced our steps back to the house of Nicolas. After a simple dinner (vegetable soup to start, followed by main course of plain white rice and chips... mmm, tasty!), we were whisked off to the village party (put on for our benefit of course)! The daughters laughed as I dressed up in traditional Peruvian dress (a white blouse, thick felt underskirt, heavy pleated overskirt, heavy black embroidered shawl and a tight wrap around embroidered belt). Alkesh got away lightly, merely donning a grey Alpaca poncho! In the village hall, the Peruvian band played cheery music and we soon were matching the footwork of traditional dancing - like line dancing, but Peruvian style-y! Quite the experience and much fun was had. That night we saw the most spectacular starry night sky - the Milky Way was immediately recognisable as was the Southern Cross and many other stars... amazing!



The following morning, we rose to the sun rise, had a quick breakfast and thanked our family, bidding them farewell in our newly acquired Quechua phrases. Back on the boat, we sailed to Taquille island. During our 3 hours on the island, we learnt a lot about the people´s culture on this island - there was a huge sense of community amongst the 3000-strong population. Here are some tidbits we learnt:
- marriages take place only once in the year, on the 2nd Sunday in May. All the village (3000 people) are invited and they bring food (like a giant pot-luck) and presents for the couple
- marriage is for life... to ensure the couple are well suited, they must live together for 3 years before getting married
- the people´s clothes (men´s hats, women´s skirt colour, women´s shawls pom poms etc.) all follow a dress code, denoting their marital status, their family line, their mood etc.
- 25 village leaders are elected each year, with every man on the island being elected at least once in their life time.
- if 1 person does wrong by another, it is like he/she has done wrong by all 3000 people on the island... such is the strong sense of ´one for all, and all for one´.
- any arguments / disagreements are settled once a week, on Sunday, by the village leaders.



It was quite a surreal experience to observe village life so closely, and at the same time, also be so acutely aware of tourism and the ´show´ put on for us. Still, we enjoyed our visit to Lake Titicaca. We had just 4-5 days left in South America, so we headed for Arequipa (Peru´s 2nd largest city) the next day. We fly out of Lima on 11th April at c. 11pm, not arriving in New Zealand (our next destination on this 6 month world travel adventure) until c. 5am on 14th April... ouch! It will be a big change, to be back in the Western world with no language problems and little cultural differences.



We´ve thoroughly enjoyed all we´ve seen and done in South America during the past 2 months. Major highlights of course include the Rio carnival at the Sambodromo in Brazil, the Iguazu Falls of Argentina, all the wildlife at Galapagos in Ecuador and of course last but by no means least, Machu Picchu in Peru... utterly amazing, and so much more in-between!

Adios amigos from South America... see you on the other side!