Yeah, I said that wrong. What I should have said was la casa de la abuela. But more on that later.
The next couple of days turned out to be unexpectedly epic. Today started at 7am with a nice breakfast buffet at the hotel. After a quick taxi ride to Puerto Puno we reconnected with our young guide Ricardo and boarded the tour boat for the trip to Amantini Island on Lake Titcaca, the largest lake in South America and considered the highest navigable lake in the world.
There are many places in Peru where the Spanish could not pronounce the local words properly. Lake Titicaca has that unfortunate distinction. In the Quechua and Aymara languages, “Titi” means puma or cat, while “qaqa” may mean gray or strong, respectively. Gray because it is overcast most of the time.
It was a chilly and beautiful day with a blue sky, unlike the typical “gray puma” namesake the lake has.
Our tour boat held about 25 people and was comfortable. There were several guides, with Ricardo hosting about seven of us. There was some onboard entertainment and wonderful views from the top of the boat as we motored along.
It took a couple of hours to go the 15 miles or so to get to our first stop.
The Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca
It is still hard to believe these exist in ‘modern’ times. But apparently the Uru people are a growing group, at least according to Wikipedia. And, as of today, there are over 120 floating islands in the lake! Maybe a half-acre in size, they are built completely from totora, a type of bulrush. And with proper care they can last over 30 years. A tradition started over 400 years ago.
The island we visited contained five households, about 30 people. As the tour boat dropped off Ricardo’s group, I realized how fortunate we were to have a small group of seven!
Typically, tour boats visit the same island community once or twice a month and there are enough islands to rotate the guests without overloading the hosts.
While many of the communities embrace tourism, some do not. And while it’s apparent that our hosts were catering to us for our visit and selling their goods, it felt very comfortable and connected. I believe the approach, at least for our visit, is working well.
Why? How?
Apparently, centuries ago, people from the Amazon region discovered Lake Titicaca and decided it was the place for them. They began to make reed boats and live off the land and lake. As the Inca Empire grew, so did their need for labor. The Uru did not want to be a part of this and took to living on their reed boats away from shore and were left alone.
When the Spanish conquistadors arrived and started enslaving and killing the locals, the Uru moved further into the lake and started building the islands as permanent settlements, probably saving their culture. Since the islands could be moved, they were able to adapt to the threat and relocate as necessary.
So they’ve been making these islands for over 400 years, longer than the USA has existed!
Ricardo, shown on the right, was born on a floating island. He and the village leader demonstrated how the heavy rootstock of the totora is separated from the lake bed and bound together in blocks to make the base of each island. The root blocks grow into each other and solidify the base. Totora reeds are then thatched over the top to make the platform. And every couple of years more is added as the layers decay.
The islands are moored, but sometimes in storms they drift. Small motorboats are used to move them around when necessary.
So cool!
The leadership of the island rotates from household to household. The children learn to swim at an early age and each commands their own little motorboat at age 5 or 6 for the 30 minute ride to school on another island! The totora reed is quite edible and kind of like cucumber in taste. The Uru also raise ducks, guinea pigs, fish and hunt waterfowl. Rainbow trout were introduced a decade ago, so there are fish pens too.
Sometimes there is a dispute between families in the community that cannot be resolved. In this situation the home can literally be cut out of the island and floated to another location.
This sounds like the perfect subdivision! Just take your home and move it to a different community!
For a few soles, we opted for a 30 minute reed boat tour by the village leader. He showed us the surroundings, one of the fish pens, and how the totora reed is harvested. It was a great day to be out on the lake and we were just completely amazed at what we were seeing.
The leader called the colorful reed boats ‘romance boats.’
—
Two will go out and three will return.
On the island, the seven of us split into groups and each visited a family’s home. Patricia and I got a close up look at how they live. The one-room hut sat on a thick reed base covered by painted plywood. The family of five slept close together for warmth and their clothing lined the walls. Two cooking huts were in the private space behind the hut, one used a propane double-burner, the other used the traditional double-opening clay stove that we’ve seen everywhere in Peru (including the museums). The private space had comfortable-looking reed chairs and a reed privacy fence surrounding it.
As you might expect, pretty much everyone that lived here was barefoot. I found it interesting that the man that showed us his home looked as if he had his dress shoes on. Maybe it was out of respect to his guests?
While no English was spoken, it struck me that he seemed serenely calm, just at peace. Fascinating. A young lady in our group was able to communicate with him and ask some questions.
As we came out of the home and around to the common space in the front, the family had some of their goods for sale. Things made out of the reed and some really nice woven rugs and pillows. Beautiful and colorful, we bought a few pieces.
We ourselves have been living in a 396 square foot tiny home for over four years. It’s fun to see how a family of five does it with less than half that space.
What a mind-blowing experience! Yet just another unexpected surprise in this fantastic country.
The tour boat picked us up and we were soon on our way to Amantini Island, another 12 miles or so.
Amantini Island
This is where we are to stay the night with one of the families. The island has about 5,000 inhabitants across 10 communities. About 50 tourists are spread across the homes in the community for the evening. Each community gets about 50 visitors a night for one week every couple of months. So again, a pretty low-key approach to tourist dollars.
At the dock, we were introduced to our hosts and ours just happened to be the community leader. Ricardo and his associate will be staying with us too. Which is great, because we sadly cannot speak any Spanish, the most common language in Peru. The native tongue on the floating islands is Aymara, here it is Quechua. Our young guide Ricardo is fluent in all three plus English. And he is learning French! Pretty humbling actually.
The community leader had other tasks to do, so his wife Polly (that’s as close as I can get) guided us up to their home. Very slowly, knitting as we climbed the entire way.
And very slowly for a reason. Lake Titicaca sits at 12,500 feet! And the village is about 500 feet above that. Even after two weeks, grabbing enough oxygen is still a lot of work! So we go slowly, slowly…
It’s stunning countryside. You feel like you’re in Europe on the Adriatic Sea or something. Small stuccoed homes perched on the steep hillsides, so picturesque.
Amantini Island only received electricity two years ago from a solar project. And there are only a few small motorbikes. They raise sheep, but apparently dogs are not allowed. Mama Polly’s home was a step back in time for us. Like most of the homes, it contained a small, open courtyard that connected the rooms. Our bedroom made me feel right at home. It reminded me of my youth where things might be well-worn but they were always clean and functional.
Our room was upstairs, accessed by the exterior walkway. There was no lock on the inside of the door. In fact, there was no latch or doorknob of any kind, just a simple pull handle. The headboard did have a little built-in lockable cabinet with a key if you had concerns about your valuables. We had no such concerns. In the above picture, there was a central ceiling fixture containing a CFL. But while the door is on the left, the actual switch is mounted in the single wall outlet, which is behind the chair to the right.
Simple, simple, simple living. And oh so lovely!
After dinner, we hiked to the top of Pachatata, one of two sacred peaks on the island and the site of old temple grounds where they have a yearly ritual of thanksgiving. It was about a 500 foot climb, putting us at 13,500 feet at the top and quite a struggle for many of the tourists!
Before sunset, we were shown how to perform the three-coca leaf ritual of giving thanks by circumnavigating the temple wall three times in meditation and then saying prayers of thanks before placing our leaves inside the temple gate. A wonderful time to reflect followed by a beautiful and peaceful sunset.
And after this very full day, we still had the community dance on the agenda!
While we waited until the time to leave, Patricia looked over some of Mama Polly’s goods for sale.
The granddaughter was cleaning up from dinner…and keeping a very watchful eye on the guests!
Mama Polly fitted us both with the traditional dress for the dance. She stayed behind while the granddaughter escorted us to the community center, probably a quarter of a mile away along various footpaths. While she did not have nor need a flashlight, we had to use ours even under the starlit sky.
I think most of the tourists came to the dance hall, it was a pretty big crowd! And we were all kitted out in our new clothes. The band cranked it up and, fortunately for me, the dance step was dead simple!
It was a lot of fun, although I don’t think taking care of two old people was what the granddaughter had in mind.
She had a complete poker face almost the entire night. But every once in a while one of her friends would take a good poke at her and you could see her crack a discrete smile.
After about an hour, the band took a break and many of the guests headed out the door.
The band, seeing their income for the night disappearing, made a fairly straightforward address to those of us remaining, making the rounds for donations and using solid eye contact. I can’t blame them at all! I gladly emptied out almost all of my soles and tossed them into the sack.
With intermission over and the band once again in full swing, things were getting pretty late for us! The songs seem to last forever and we were trying to figure out how to exit gracefully.
The granddaughter came over to check on us again and encourage us to dance, albeit with a stone-cold expression that showed she was in great chaperone-induced pain.
How to relieve this stress? My deplorable grasp of Spanish was not helping. And then I remembered two words from my feeble work with Duolingo!
“Abuela’s casa.“
Her eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning! She smiled and hustled us out of the community center and quickly back to grandmother’s house. And, as I had hoped, she was now free to return to be with her friends, her penance done.
As I relayed in my very first post on this odyssey, we crawled into bed in the unheated room under massively heavy woolen blankets. We could barely move.
And we slept like stones.
We’re up early, today we will visit Taquile Island, known for its men weavers, and then make our way back to Puno and on to Juliaca, where we will catch a hopper flight back to Lima.
Mama Polly’s mother is already in the garden as we leave. Another beautiful day.
As we walk to the tour boat, some locals are selling their wares. I find a man selling chacana stones made from the other sacred peak, Pachamama, and I have just enough coins to make the deal. Pretty cool!
The chacana has a long history that is much debated, but one simple definition is that it represents the dynamic between the universe and everything that lives in it.
Taquile Island
Before being renamed to a Spanish nobleman, it was “island of the sunflowers” and is still known as Intika today by the locals. It hosts about 2,000 residents and is half the size of Amantini Island. Its sides are steep, requiring 540 steps to reach the main community. Because it is remote and almost 30 miles from Puno, the culture has remained largely intact and has a unique weaving tradition.
The men are renowned for their weaving here. In fact, any prospective couple is expected to live with each family for 5 months before marriage to ensure that the suitor is proficient at weaving and knitting!
I was excited to have the chance to buy one of these unique and finely knitted hats! But as it turns out, the finest ones were incredibly tight on my head, and not actually intended to cover my ears!
They carry meaning. If the top half of the hat is red, the man is married. If it’s white, he is unmarried. If the top falls on one side he is available, but unavailable if it is placed on the other side.
There is even a weaving competition in the community to see who can make the tightest weave. The test is to see which one holds water the longest!
Taquile Island has only had electricity for a year and things are done simply here. No motorized equipment or work animals are used. Building a house requires a team of locals to haul materials from the dock to its location.
The Perfect Twenty
As I mentioned earlier, I ran out of soles on Amantini Island. And Mama Polly was not happy accepting US dollars, even though Patricia added extra for her trouble.
Here on Taquile, we had picked out several goods at the community cooperative. But the cashier wasn’t comfortable with our money and called in the manager.
Ricardo helped out with the language barrier, and after it was all said and done, I realized that we had put them in a tough position. You see, any US dollars will have to be exchanged somewhere eventually, and if they are damaged in any way they will be discounted.
And on top of that, the most desirable US bill is the twenty. Anything else is frowned upon. This makes sense as it is still the most popular international currency. So we hope that Mama Polly eventually is rewarded for her troubles.
Now for the manager, my total was about $36USD. He had zero interest in my exact change. Finally he agreed to two $20’s (more easily exchanged) and provided the change in soles. BUT, they needed to be perfect! I eventually just emptied my money stash of all twenties so that he could find something that met the standard.
Lesson learned, crisp US $20’s are good to have on hand.
After a fabulous lunch of rainbow trout and muña tea, we worked our way down to the dock for the three-hour ride back to Puno.
Back to Lima
At Puno, we said our goodbyes to Ricardo and his team and were whisked away to Juliaca where we caught a flight back to Lima. The airport was wonderful and the workers seemed extra friendly. A great way to end our stay in southern Peru.
Once in Lima, we were picked up at the airport for our trip to the hotel in Mira Flores. Our last day is upon us!