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Perú – By the shores of Lake Titicaca

I made my way from Cusco to Puno on a bus ride that took about 6-7 hours. The road was very well built, the terrain fairly flat (though rising over the distance), and pretty much a straight road. After looking at the views from the bus I was very glad I took the bus instead of flying.

Early that evening, I visited the local annual fair of miniatures, very peculiar and local event. They sell all sorts of things in miniature so that whatever you buy there in miniature will come true for you real life (and real size). Examples: a groom, a bride, a wedding cake (any of these if you want to get married); dollars, euros, Peruvian soles (if you want to have money); cars; laptops or PCs; houses; apartment buildings; etc. It was mostly locals only and I greatly enjoyed the atmosphere.

The Touristy but Nevertheless Curious Uros Islands

Since I had the weekend to myself, I signed up for a tour of the Lake Titicaca zone. There were about 20 of us tourists from a few different countries signed up for this 36 hour tour. We started by visiting the Uros floating islands that are very close to Puno almost inside the bay. These islands are built on the reeds that grow naturally in the lake. The history of the islands is that the local people were being attacked 600 yrs ago or so by the expanding Inca empire. They didn’t want to be subjugated so they moved to the lake itself. The islands have as a base the 3ft-deep root system of the reeds. They pull these reeds together and tie them. Then they begin laying layer after layer of cut reed. Each layer criss-crosses the other. After about 3-6 feet of this, they have their island! They replenish the top frequently as the bottom layers of reed soften up over time. They say the islands have a life span of 30 yrs. They even have a school floating island.  (Here is a short clip where the local women send the visitors off with a song-and-dance:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIt7mJ29pZo.)  Btw, they are floating but they are anchored J 

 

On a REAL Island – Amantaní

Afterwards we moved into the main part of the lake itself to visit a real island, called Amantani. We were going to stay at the island overnight as the lake waters apparently become dangerous after the mid-afternoon. At the island we were assigned a host family in groups of 2 or 3. The 3 of us who were traveling solo got grouped together. The host family is a local farmer family (there is nothing else on the island) that lives off the food they grow for the most part (they make some arts and crafts that they sell to visitors). I.e., they are very poor. But, someone (an NGO, I suspect) developed a program for them to host tourists at their place and get some income for that as well as a captive audience to sell their crafts. They are actually certified as having been trained. All the houses served exactly the same menu for the 3 meals we had while with the family (the group compared notes on the respective host families) and the food was mild and of the low risk kind – amenable to any tourist and especially good for me after my bout of Inca revenge the prior week in Cusco! We had a private room with OK beds (I sleep on ALMOST anything) and about 3 or 4 wool blankets each; there was neither heat nor electricity available. I slept in my jeans with gloves and my traditional hat. For bathrooms, we had latrines. Actually, fairly nice (as far as latrines go) though I suspect these were built with the tourists in mind. They were better than others I have used in other trips in that the hole wasn’t just a straight down thing but, instead, you flushed things down and it went off through a pipe to the latrine hole proper a few feet away. To flush, we had to carry a bucket of water to drop so it would flush. (Did I share too much? I know some in my audience would want this detail!)

That afternoon we hiked to the top of the mountain to visit pre-Inca temples and watch the sunset over the lake. The hike was hard as most of us hadn’t been in Puno (3800m altitude) a full day yet and we were hiking to 4100m… The lake is a beautiful blue and the sky picture perfect. You can see in the distance the high peaks on the Bolivian side of the lake covered with snow. Since it is so high there, abt 4100m high, the air is thinner and the color of nightfall seemed different.

After the hike, dinner in each house and then we all got together for a fiesta that was so-so. But we had to dress in local garments (a poncho and a hat for me which felt good because it was cold) and listen to music. We left as soon as we could and sat down to watch the star-filled sky (there are no lights on anywhere around where we were). It was fantastic! Fiesta experience aside, I highly recommend the island experience. Sunday we visited a neighboring island, as beautiful as the first one but a little more developed, called Taquile. We had lunch there after we hiked the island and then trekked back to Puno.

Visiting Projects in Remote Areas of the Azángaro Province  

Monday I visited beneficiaries of a project my organization runs to help farmers who raise bulls to sell for meat to fatten them faster and to sell them directly to the market instead of relying on intermediaries (who typically mislead them and take a big chunk of the proceeds). From 1-2 yrs it was taking them to fatten a bull to the size needed to sell, it now takes them 2.5-4 months which means they, at least quadrupled their income. If you consider the money they don’t have to pay intermediaries (minus the costs they incur of selling the bull), their take is even higher. These folks usually start with one bull and slowly grow to have 3-4 at a time after doing this for a few cycles. They emphasized over and over in the various areas I visited how this has helped them get out of extreme poverty to just poverty. They can now send their kids to school, for ex. The way the fattening time was cut was by simply introducing protein in the diet of the bulls. The cool thing was that the farmers already had most of what they needed in the form of waste created after collecting the various crops they grow. Stems, leaves, etc of different crops that remain after the core product is harvested used to be burned but some of these actually are highly nutritious. The only thing they have to buy is molasses and some powder (I forget what it was). One of the ingredients is urea. A funny thing was that on one of the visits they prepared a demo for me of the mix being created. There were about 9 women and each would pour a bag of an ingredient. Then the molasses, the urine and the powder were mixed in a small tub by a woman with her BARE arm and hand! Then that mix was poured over the big pile and all the women stepped in to mix it all well, again, with their bare hands! Imagine me standing there, having shaken everyone’s hands upon arriving and knowing full well I was to shake their hands afterwards!

Well, God has a sense of humor. As I was a special guest and they are very hospitable folks, they prepared some roasted potatoes, some white cream, and served also cheese they had made. After the mix spectacle, I was expected to eat – otherwise, I would be rejecting their humble hospitality. I had seen a woman rinse her hands so I talked myself into believing they had all sterilized themselves before preparing the food and dug in to eat what I thought was the safest of the fare: the roasted potatoes. I had to try the cheese given how it was given to me but I successfully skirted the white cream (or liquid). Who knows what that was! Cow puke? Curded milk? I didn’t want to find out. I figured I had done 2 out of 3 and that was a stretch enough!!

 I did get interviewed while visiting a new water treatment plant by the local TV station in the area. I am guessing it is a small station because we were quite far from the town of Puno in the middle of Azángaro. I was asked what I thought of the water treatment plant. Mind you, I know zilch about water treatment or plants that do so. Yet, I guess they thought the foreign visitor must have been an expert if I had come so far to see it… So, I had to with camera on me be spontaneous and say something half smart. I hope I sounded smart but I missed the broadcast and didn’t get to Tivo it J

 I have to talk abt the scenery here. The land is incredible. There are vast plains surrounded by mountains. That would normally be called a valley but the expanse is so great that “valley” doesn’t conjure the right picture. Since it is early winter and it is the dry season, the grass is browning but you still glimpse some green. I have been very fortunate that I get to go off the beaten path as I get to see undeveloped territory and the beauty of the land as it has always been. They say this area looks a lot like parts of Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan. The area of Azángaro is by far the one I liked the most. I could see a biking circuit for ecotourists being developed in that area to go visiting small towns and nature areas. But I guess too many tourists would spoil the sense of “real” the area gives.  

I left Puno by plane flying back to Lima (actually, Puno has no airport due to its topography, crunched between the lake and mountains).One actually drives to the town next door called Juliaca – not a place one should visit.  A local told me that in Peru they say that if you dream of dogs, you will be mugged but that if you dream of Juliaca, you already have been…  

Ever since my childhood I have been fascinated a bit by Lake Titicaca (OK, more by the funny sounding name in Spanish…)  Now, having seen the beautiful landscape around it and its deep blue waters, I am definitely entranced by it!

 

 

 

 

17 December 2008 Posted by Raul | Travel Journal | Azángaro, perú, Puno, Titicaca | Leave a Comment