Lake Titikaka and the chronicles of Ms. X

After flying back from Puerto to Cuzco I met with Christy at the airport, it was so nice to see her after our break and we went out and celebrated in the city, we woke up the next morning with a vague recollection of what had happened and receipt which stated we had drunk 18 shots at one bar, we had obviously been framed. We spent a couple more days in Cuzco, recovering and visited the town Christy had been staying at to see her perfect pots. We then took a bus for 6 hours to the lakeside city of Puno. Puno is situated next to the highest lake in the world, Lake Titikaka. Our mission here was to get onto the lake to visit the people who lived on the reed islands. We met a man near the lake who declared that he was “the famous Juan of the port”, I wanted to tell him that he couldn’t reliably declare himself famous and that it was really down to other people to do this, but let him continue to tell us about a trip to the reed islands he could arrange for us, including spending a night on one of the quieter islands. It sounded great so we decided to go ahead and let the one and only world famous Juan of the port arrange it for us.

We set off the next morning and caught a boat from the harbour, our first stop was the floating reed islands of Uros. Nearly everything on these islands are made from reeds; houses, floors, boats, pets, food and much more. Apparently they inhibitants initially made these floating islands because of the threat from the Incas and because they could hide on the lake away from them.

We pulled up to the island, stepped onto the spongy reed surface and were greeted by the islanders who were dressed in their traditional gear. After a short talk from our tour guide we were attacked by the islanders who pulled us into their reed houses and tried to sell us their reed made goods. It all felt a bit too touristy and I was half expecting to see a reed VISA card reader or a McDonalds around the back of the island. We spent an hour or so on the island trying to avoid buying souvenirs we didn’t want, including a badly stuffed duck, which was quite a mission on an island smaller than most people’s back garden. At the end they bundled some of the more pliable gringos onto a reed boat and paddled them off with the islanders serenading them with “hasta la vista baby” as they floated away. We decided to save our money and caught the tour boat across for free instead; we didn’t get a hasta la vista send off which was most upsetting, anyone would think they just wanted our money.

We visited one more reed island and Christy brought a nice tapestry off a grumpy reed lady who looked like she might throttle me for taking her photo, we then set off for Isla Amantani. Our boat seemed to be powered by something like reeds and moved at a slower-than-death pace, it took over three hours to arrive at the island which was approximately 14 metres away. We were a bit apprehensive after the Disneyworld’esq experience we had at the floating island but went in with an open mind anyway.

The island was quite rugged and arid and it reminded me of the island in the “wicker man” film, I hoped that we wouldn’t be burnt alive during our stay.

It turned out there was no roads, vehicles, play stations, Topshop, strip clubs or electricity on the island so it looked positive that it would be a more authentic experience. We were greeted by a few families of islanders, and everyone was paired off to stay with one of the families. After the pairing there was one lady left by herself and we offered to let her join our temporary family for the day and night, for the purposes of confidentiality I will call her Ms X. Our host family was a girl of 20 called Marissa, and her grandmother and grandfather, whose names I could not understand but that I pretended to take note of. They led us up the short hill towards their house and Ms X nearly had a heart attack on the way up, they offered to take all of her luggage to lighten her burden and their potential liability in the case of a law suit that could take place if she keeled over on the way up. The house was basic and it was made of mud blocks, but it was in a nice location looking out over the sea.

We got to meet the family properly, Marissa’s grandparents spoke some Spanish but mostly the local dialect of Quechua and Marissa spoke both Spanish and Quechua – they were all very nice and made us feel at home. We tested out our basic Spanish skills and managed to get along fine, although Ms X had been touring South America for some time she didn’t know any Spanish, and kept repeating “gratil” instead of Gracias which seemed to amuse and confuse the family at the same time. They cooked us lunch and we had it sitting out in the sun in their garden, next to their sheep and chickens. Looking at the sheep Ms X asked in all seriousness "are they llamas?", excellent! We spent the afternoon exploring the island, saw part of an annual island party and then headed back to their house for dinner.

We had dinner in a small room accompanied by the grandfather who was a really nice man, we questioned him as best we could in our broken Spanish and it was really nice to speak to a real life authentic person who didn’t own a Mercedes and/or shares in Microsoft. He had lived on the island all of his 68 years and had always been a farmer, and lived in their current house. He had married his wife young and they had amassed 5 children, one cow and a few sheep and chickens (not all through copulation). He had obviously had a fairly hard life, but seemed very happy with his lot, and with the view out of the window I guess we could see why.

After the meal we washed up the dishes to say thanks, but Ms X couldn’t wash the dishes as she didn’t want to get cold so instead she sat in the corner letting off little farts and mumbling gratil occasionally.

Next we were asked to prepare for a party. We went to our room and shortly after the grandparents came up and knocked on our door, they had brought us some appropriate clothes to wear to the party. Christy was given the traditional island costume and I was given a fetching poncho and hat combo.

We were then whisked to the party, we arrived to an empty warehouse with just one man sitting in the corner next to a table with a couple of beers on it, this was to be the bar. Well, we wanted authentic and this certainly wasn’t Ministry of sound so in a way we got what we wanted.

Gradually more people came to the hall and a small band set themselves up and started playing. We were taught how to dance by Marissa and proceeded to mess it up completely. We danced a few dances, had a beer and then set off home in time for bed at 9:30pm.

The stars on the way home were so bright and you could see the whole milky way, no electricity is certainly a good thing sometimes. We got up the next morning, had breakfast and then said goodbye to our Peruvian family, it was nice to stay with them and meet such friendly people.

Next up we visited another island, called Taquile, on the way Ms X warned us and the tour guide, and in fact most of the group that she had bad diarrhoea and could expel her bowels at any moment. We braced ourselves and continued on hoping for the best, I was worried our slow boat couldn’t take any extra weight whether it consisted of people or faeces. Isla Taquile was a scenic island which reminded us of Greece, life here was also slow and the locals continued their traditions including wearing certain costumes depending on their status, arranged marriages, public beatings for crimes, and possibly burning people in wicker caskets for fun. We spent the afternoon on the island and had a nice time wandering around.

After we stepped back onto the sloth-boat and steamed slowly but surely back towards the mainland. We finally arrived, both happy that overall the trip had been a real success and spent the night into Puno, the next day we travelled to Arequipa where we are now. We’ve spent the last few days visiting the deepest canyon in the world (twice as deep as the grand canyon, so yaa sucks to you America!), spotting condors, and visiting Juanita the ice maiden so I’ll write a blog about that soon.