Puno and Lake Titicaca - May 30-June 1

May 30- June 1: Lake Titicaca and Puno
We left Cusco this morning at 7 AM and got on a rather nice tourist bus headed for Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The bus was scheduled to make 3 stops along the way to allow us to see some sights and stretch our legs. When we left Cusco we continued up onto the Altiplano and stopped at Andahuyaylillas a small village in a Quecha speaking area. We stopped to look at a Jesuit church that is renowned for its gold embellishments and art work. The church is oppressively gold. The stuff is everywhere and the decorations are intricate and outlandish at the same time. At the entrance of the church are two paintings – the one on the right shows the path to heaven and the one on the left the path to hell. The left painting is designed to be frightening and it is. In front of the church there is a market selling goods to the tourists who come. Perhaps the loveliest part of the church is the beautiful garden on the side next to the restrooms.
When we leave Andahuyaylillas and proceed to Raqchi the site of a rather impressive Inca ruin. What is left of a large town are the walls of the temple of the god Viracocha, the god who created the heavens, the earth, the sun, and moon, and time. He is depicted wearing the sun as a crown, carrying thunderbolts in his hands, and with rain running from his eyes as tears. This temple was once one of the holiest sites in the Inca Empire. All that is left are some very high walls over which a roof has been placed to prevent further deterioration by the weather. The walls run many 100s of feet from north to south. They are built on carefully placed stones that are arranged in the shape of the Inca cross, shapes of the Inca trinity, the condor, puma and snake are also built into the foundation. A long walkway with short walls on either side leads up to the temple. This walkway is built so that on the solstices the sun shines directly down the street to the temple. On the way to the temple I encounter a lovely old man with his Carabao. He insists that I pay him when I take his picture from a distance but when I see him up close I am willing to give him another Sole for a close up as he has truly fabulous face. He tells me that he is 85 and a farmer. That he owns a carabao tells me he is not truly poor. Following our visit to this site we go a short ways to a restaurant where we are served a rather unremarkable buffet lunch which we were given one half hour to eat (that was probably all it deserved but I still hated being rushed).
After lunch the bus continued up the mountains until it reached La Raya at 4470 meters or 14,751 ft is the highest place I have ever been. The view is not spectacular but it is pretty with a lake below in a field of golden yellow hills. The ever present vendors are arrayed along the parking area selling the usual alpaca wool items and other Andean crafts. We proceed from La Raya to Pucara. This is a fairly large town that has a museum with some stone large Inca artifacts. I am most interested in the two elderly beggar women who are sitting on the side walk near the museum. The first looks to be well over eighty and speaks only Quecha so I can’t ask her any questions. She was weeping and I exchanged a photo for a sole. The second woman speaks Spanish and she is in her eighties. She has no son to take care of her so she has no source of income. I took her picture and perhaps because I understood her situation better I gave her more soles. There are no social welfare programs in Peru and the elderly who do not have families to take care of them may have little or nothing to eat and may be homeless.
Once we leave Pucara we head towards the dusty busy city of Juliaca. There is a large private university on the main road, because it is Sunday the gates are closed and the campus deserted. The buildings are new and modern in stark contrast with the rest of Juliaca which is brown and dusty and full of buildings in various states of construction. There are mototaxis everywhere. These look like Iquitos motor cars but because Juliaca is cold in winter and at night since it is in the high desert, both the driver and the passenger compartments are enclosed with plastic. They are just as noisy as the ones in Iquitos and cut in and out of traffic with the same aplomb. Soon after we leave Juliaca we are in the outskirts of Puno and we see Lake Titicaca but not until the next morning when we are cruising on the lake do we have any real conception of its size. A taxi from our hotel Tambo Real meets us at the bus station and takes us to the hotel. The hotel is old but well maintained and I think we are its only residents tonight. Soon after we arrive a woman from the travel agency Elena works with comes to tell us about the schedule for tomorrow when we will be going to the islands in Lake Titicaca where we will spend the night with a host family. We wander downtown to the central plaza in Puno and note that there are two large cathedrals. We ate dinner downtown and then looked for some sugar, rice, and oil that had been suggested as gifts for our host family on the island of Amandanti. After a really good night’s sleep in our quiet hotel we were picked up by a mini bus which proceeds to a number of other hotels picking up an Australian family, a couple from Lima, a Danish girl who is blind, and 5 gorgeous Israeli girls on holiday between finishing the army and starting university. We were then conducted to a nice 20 person boat for our trip onto Lake Titicaca. The boat proceeded out of the harbor at Puno and it soon became clear that we would be traveling for more than an hour before we left the bay of Puno and entered the Lake proper. The lake is enormous -178km long and 69 km across at its narrowest point. I always thought the lake was mostly in Boliva but more than two-thirds of the lake is in Peru.
Soon after we departed the dock we are navigating a channel through the tortolla reeds that are used the build the floating islands, the boats, and the houses, and that provide a source of food and medicine for the residents of the floating islands. We went to Uros, a collection of floating tortolla islands in the lake quite near to Puno. The islanders used to live along the shores of the lake but about 20 years ago they moved onto the lake to avoid persecution and mistreatment. The islands are built by layering tortolla reeds in alternating directions making up to 20 layers. This process takes about 3 months to make an island that can support a family. Once the floating island is created houses can be built on it by adding some additional layers for moisture insulation, soil can be laid over it to create a garden, and animals such as pigs, ducks, and geese raised on it. The boats are made with tortolla reeds and 3 liter empty plastic water and pop bottles. It takes about 2000 bottles for a boat that will hold 20 people. Boat building takes 6 men 15 days and the boats have to be replaced every year.
Uros is a collection of these floating islands most in visual contact with one another. Every island has an observation tower that prior to the advent of cell phones served as a way of communicating between the islands. Only Uros people can live on the islands and tourists are taken to various islands in rotation so that all islands get visitors and the income from the fees and from tourist goods. There is no electrical service on the islands but every one of them had solar panels that powered not only the lights but also TVs, stereos, small refrigerators, and computers. Although they have modern conveniences, the Uros people live traditional life styles. The status of a woman is evident in the pom poms she ties to her braids. Young unmarried women have large and very colorful pom poms, married women have smaller and less brightly colored pom poms and widows or grandmothers wear dull colored pom poms.
Women also wear brightly colored skirts that identify their village. Some of the colors are neon bright and I wondered where they got the dye or the fabric. The men dress in trousers and homespun shirts the children dress as their parents do. Many of the islands raise trout for food and for sale the men also catch ducks, coots, and blue heron for food which is served fresh or dried. Quinoa, the staple grain is grown on the mainland or on the natural islands. We went for a ride in one of the tortolla canoes which skims above the water. I tried to paddle it but it is really hard work and with the lake at 12,500 ft I soon ran out of breath and happily gave the paddle back to the islander. After a short visit to Uros we were off to Amantandi island where we will have lunch served by our host mothers and see our accommodations for the night. While the Uros islands are in Puno bay, Amatandi is in the lake proper so we motor for about another hour before we arrive.
Amantadi Island is a quiet beautiful place. There are no cars or motorcycles. There are a few small bodegas but no real stores. There is an elementary school and a community center. There are 5 villages on one side of the island and 3 on the other. The women who meet us are clad in traditional skirts and chupas (a long shawl that is embroidered by the husband with beautiful roses ). The color of skirt worn by the women identifies the village. Our host mother, Naomi, wears a black skirt as do many other women at the wharf but we also see women in red and green. We were conducted up a hill along a dirt path to our “home” for the night. The accommodations are surprisingly comfortable with two double beds and one single, a chair, and an electric overhead light. Downstairs there was a modern tiled bathroom with shower. However I don’t think anyone will be showering as the water is cold and the ambient temperature on this island at night and in the early morning is somewhere around 40 F. We were given one room and a young couple on their honeymoon were accommodated in another nearby room but they have a different host mother. The host mothers are related but we are fed in different kitchens. For lunch we all have quinoa soup (very good), potatoes, cucumbers, and cheese toast. After lunch we can walk around a bit and then we are to meet at 3:30 to walk up to the top of either Pachymama (Earth mother) or Pachytata (Earth father), two very imposing looking mountains. I barely make it to the saddle where one has a view of the lake on the other side of the island but then my Israeli friends convinced me that it was not very much further to the top and that I could make it. I was so out of breathe from the altitude and the steepness of the path I couldn’t imagine how I would get to the top but being stubborn old lady I just pushed on, stopping every once in a while to breathe with pursed lips trying to suck every bit of oxygen out of the thin air. Just as the sun was nearly set I reached the top and could see the lake on both sides of the island in the light of the setting sun. I was able to walk around the remains of the temple and hear how the people of the island climb to the temple in mid January each year just as the plants are beginning to grow in the fields and ask the blessings of Pachytata on the crops and people. Then I was urged to hurry down before it got dark because indeed it becomes nearly pitch black on the island at night. I hurried down and reached the plaza before my host family who intercepted me on the way down and led me back up! Good lord that bit of a walk nearly killed me but while I waited for Brenda to arrive from Pachymama I got a Coke Zero at the store and found a lovely older woman to photograph. At last Brenda arrived and we were led down to our host’s house grateful for our flashlights. After a few minutes to wash up we were called to dinner of a potato, rice and tomato stew. We were invited to the go to the “disco” and dance with the islanders but by then all I could think about was bed. We’d had little sleep the night before we came to Puno and not much the night before. Both of us were tired and I was asleep before 830PM which is pretty unbelievable since I hardly ever go to sleep before 1100PM.
We slept well although our room was quite cold. We had plenty of blankets and slept in our long underwear and socks so we stayed warm. We were up early and met our host families’ parents – Rufino age 63 and his wife age 61 whose Quecha name I could neither remember nor pronounce. Rufino was out chopping wood before six and there was a cozy fire in the room the family uses for a sitting-cooking room. Naomi’s sister was cooking when we were called to a wonderful pancake breakfast and Nadine, her brother’s 1 year old was entertaining us and having her picture taken – she was really cute and very photogenic. After breakfast we thanked our hosts, packed our backpacks, and were led back to the wharf to board our boat for the trip to Taquile Island.
After about an hour’s ride we arrived at Taquile where we were confronted with another big hill to climb but this one was not as difficult as Pachytata and I was less tired so I only had to stop a few times to catch my breath. Once again, I had my wonderful Israeli women to encourage me on and it was fun to talk to them as we made our way to the town plaza at the top of the hill. I was grateful that we could walk up the path and not be required to climb the 532 steps that we would be asked to descend when we left. The town plaza was quite lovely and I had my photo taken with my Israeli supporters , I bought a gift for my husband and yes climbed to the top of the building to see the observation point. Then we climbed some more to the restaurant where we had a lovely lunch of quinoa soup, trout, and potatoes. Then we walked down all 532 steps to the boat for the three hour trip back to Puno.
During the ride back I had a chance to talk to several of the other passengers including Karen, the Danish girl who is blind. She had been in Bolivia teaching Braille for the past 4 months. She often travels alone and always finds people to help when she needs it, which is not often. I watched her walk across the top deck of the boat, step up onto the roof and unerringly walk to the edge where the ladder was, step on the ladder and go down without a misstep. Utterly amazing! I also talked a bit to the Chinese couple who were a brother and sister – he lived in Taiwan and designed cell phone programs and she lived in Manhattan and was web designer they were both on their first trip to South America. I had spent a little time the day before with an older couple – meaning nearly as old as me – from Lima. He was a retired professor of animal science and she worked for the department of Agriculture. He was surprised I was still working since he was required to retire when he was 60. We had a great time trying to communicate with my limited Spanish and his limited English – nevertheless we talked for more than an hour and mostly in Spanish. (I love it when I know I am getting more words!).
After a lovely boat ride over the beautiful blue lake we arrived in Puno about 4:00 PM and were taken back to our hotel in the van. We freshened up, organized our belongings for our trip to Arequipa the next morning and went down to the Plaza. We found a place to eat, did a little shopping and returned to our early hotel since we had a bus trip early in the AM. I am so glad we did this little side trip it was tough but delightful.