Wednesday, January 03, 2007
23-24 December Lake Titicaca and perfect weather
It's hard to believe only a couple of days ago I was being rained on and fogged in on a mountain of 2500m and I am now at 4000m on one of the worlds largest lakes and you could be forgiven for thinking we were on the Meditteranean in the middle of August!....
As I cruised back from Amantani Island on Lake Titicaca on Christmas Eve all you Aussies slept into Christmas Day. We Aussies (well actually Kiwis but there weren't any on the boat) are the first to celebrate Christmas taking into account time differences. And although there were 3 Aussies on board, I was the only one from the east coast so I ran around the boat wishing everyone Felic Navidad (spanish for Merry Christmas). Started a habit for the day and as each nationality's country hit Christmas day they wished everyone else Merry Christmas. There were people from Japan, Korea, Netherlands, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, USA, Sweden, Peru and Oz of course (about 24 in all).
The overnight in a homestay on Amantani and visiting floating islands on this huge sea-like lake was incredible. Very educational and particularly beautiful. The weather was perfect for me - fine and warm at last. We are in the southern hemisphere summer after all!
To get a perspective on how big this fresh water lake is - it is wider than the Gulf of Sinai, you cannot see across it's length north to south, and the snow capped mountains of Bolivia sit on the horizon to the west (A bit like when in Syria you could see the snow capped mountains of Lebanon). It is over 8500km2 (or 3300 miles2) and holds nearly 900 million cubic metres of water. Maybe Bram or Gerry you could convert that to land mass in North Qld and let me know how much it would cover...anyway it's a bloody big lake and all fresh water which they don't use for irrigation. However Bolivia has started selling 'their' water to Chile and Argentina which is like a red rag to a bull to Peru. Peru and Chile are more parochial about each other than Townsville and Cairns, Sydney and Melbourne - in fact it's more like France and England, Germany and Holland.
First point of call was the floating ilsands of Uros. These islands are actually quite close to the Peru mainland (about 40min in a slow boat) and are made of the lake's totora reeds. Where the islands float is about 20m deep and the islands themselves are about 3m thick of reeds constantly being topped up with fresh harvested reeds. By the time the inhabitants leave an island for a fresh built one it will be between 7-10 years old and up to 7m thick of rotting reeds. Only the top 50cm or so is fresh. You can imagine how heavy the island becomes as it gets older, from rotting vegetation and waterlogging. Hence leaving for a fresh built island before the old one sinks. The 'ground' is soft and spongy and slightly damp, with a dry, sweet reed crust. It actually smells quite good - like cut grass - but I'm not sure what it would be like in the wet...
Extended family groups inhabit each island, living very traditional lives, fishing and weaving, farming small subsistance crops like potatoes, chickens and guinea pigs for their own food and barter between islands. They still use barter rather than money as they have very little demand for outside products (read manufactured here). The island we visited had 4 families on it living in reed houses on the reed island. They had chooks (for eggs and meat), a cat (to eat the vermin), guinea pigs (for food not pets), a few small vege patches, a shared kitchen/oven/fire pit, a small live fish trap (basically a hole cut in the island and lined with fishing net, where they kept todays catch fresh). No bathroom or shower rig that I could see. Toileting was down a hole into the lake and any washing was in a bucket with water heated on the open fire. I did see a young girl scrubbing clothes in a bucket...They make their boats out of reeds also and weave and knit all their clothes - lama and alpaca wool is traded from other contenential islands. We made a quick stop at the 'main' island that had a school, shop, public telephone, cafe, and very basic commerical accommodation. There is also a floating school island. But I don't think school is seen as particularly important by these people.
We then cruised for three hours out into the Lake to one of the largest islands (and continental) - Amantani. It is quite mountainous and has been extensively terraced at some point in pre-Inca past. Again, the people live very simple lives based on agricuture and survival in a very small economy. When we arrived on the island we were split into 2's and 3's to go home with our host families. I was put with the other two Aussies (a mother and daughter from Perth) and our host 'Ruth' - pronounced Rut - walked us up the mountain to her home. We nearly died getting up the mountain. At 4000m any incline is pretty hard going and this young girl of 17 was like a mountain goat up the track. Everyone blamed the altitude but I think it is a combination of altitude and lowering fitness...afterall I have been at altitude for over a week now...
Ruth lives with her mum and dad and 5 other siblings (total of 4 girls and 2 boys). She is the youngest at 17 and still at school. One of her sisters has two young children but we didn't meet them. The women never stop spinning or knitting or embroidering. They walk around constantly using their hands to create beautiful craft work, which they wear every day and also sell to visitors. The men are also master embroiderers and must make beautiful pieces for their women to show them how much they are valued. If they sitting down they are either preparing food or weaving. One throw rug takes two weeks of constant work - and I mean dawn til dusk.
They don't have much electricity and it is not wasted on working in the evening. They are up at dawn and go to bed as soon as dinner is finished around 8pm. No bathroom, and an outside toilet (western pan with a drum of water you took a bucket from to 'flush' - I'm sure the flush just went into an open drain that ran down the hill...)
There was one light in their kitchen/eating area and another in our room. The kitchen was about 3m x 6m and had a dirt floor with a table with benches against the far wall for us to eat at; a small low table they sat on the floor at to eat and prep food nearer to the fire; and an open fireplace with space to hang a stew pot and put a griddle over the fire to grill meat and bread. The women cooked but I noticed the youngest son (about 19yo) did all the washing by hand in a bucket out in the garden.
The food was very plain and simple but prepared well and tasty. It was completely vegetarian but I think this was more to protect our western digestions that how they normally eat. They had a great native plant remeniscent of mint/menthol/sage which they used in fresh sprigs in boiling water for tea which was terrific. Must get into fresh herbs rather than tea bags at home. The results are 1000s of times better.
We watched a local soccer game the afternoon we arrived. A couple of the young Japanese men from our group joined in and said later they really struggled to keep up as they were so out of breath. They play on concrete pitches a sort of cross between Futsol and outdoor soccer. Mainly I think for practical reasons - if the ball went out it ran down hill fast and had to be fetched. So the rules encouraged the ball to remain in play!...The local men were not that keen to have our group join the game. They made the visitors wait about 40min til they had finished their game before they would start a 'friendly'. The players though were all sorts - older blokes in the 40's down to young teenagers of about 14. Their ball skills were terrific. I wonder if any European scouts ever get to Amantani....
A huge thunderstorm tracked across the lake in the evening, clearing the evening and bringing more beautiful weather on day two.
Visiting this island was a good way to support the local people directly. So many of the artisans earn very little for their beautiful work. The middle men take all the profit. But here you don't pay much to stay but you buy things direct from them while you are on the island - cutting out the middle man. We had a traditional dance for a couple of hours tonight and all the visitors bought soft drinks for the local ladies who taught us to dance. So the locals got the treat and the money went into their economy. And we were all given hand knitted beanies to 'borrow' while we were there (yes it was cold at night) and we were encouraged to buy them. The money went straight to the knitter (your host). I bought my beanie instead of leaving a tip.
It seems to work quite well.
A beautiful dawn, clear and fresh and QUIET. So quiet. Quieter than the Australian bush. No wildlife to wake you up as the environment is very farmed. And the most glorious view of the Bolivian alps from our window. Not a spec of polution this morning, the air is clear, cold and fresh; the mountains are white with a tinge of pink like almond paste. And a fine blue key line along the edge that meets the sky. The sun is up very early and by 7am looks like 11am. Is it altitude...still not sure...
Off in our boat, chugging through the still waters towards Taquile. This island is very similar to Amantani and we do a walk around the island, enjoying the peace, the views of the lake and the 'soul' of the island. This is where I kept being reminded of all the photos I've seen of the Greek Islands in the meditteranean - except instead of cyprus pines there are Eucalyptus. A very popular tree as it grows fast and is good hard wood for building and cooking. As I walked along the track I noticed one of the local houses had a curtain made of an Australian flag. Most unexpected and made me feel homesick for a few minutes as I absorbed the red, white and blue against the green of the gum trees and blue of the 'ocean'. A thought flittered across my mind - when are we going to make our flag just the blue and white southern cross?...
It was a long trip back across the lake this afternoon. The 3 hours seemed an eternity as the anticlimax of going back to Puno became reality. The wind got up and it was cold out there at altitude on the open water.
Funny little place Puno...very poor and dirty sitting on the shores of this beautiful lake.
It's hard to believe only a couple of days ago I was being rained on and fogged in on a mountain of 2500m and I am now at 4000m on one of the worlds largest lakes and you could be forgiven for thinking we were on the Meditteranean in the middle of August!....
As I cruised back from Amantani Island on Lake Titicaca on Christmas Eve all you Aussies slept into Christmas Day. We Aussies (well actually Kiwis but there weren't any on the boat) are the first to celebrate Christmas taking into account time differences. And although there were 3 Aussies on board, I was the only one from the east coast so I ran around the boat wishing everyone Felic Navidad (spanish for Merry Christmas). Started a habit for the day and as each nationality's country hit Christmas day they wished everyone else Merry Christmas. There were people from Japan, Korea, Netherlands, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, USA, Sweden, Peru and Oz of course (about 24 in all).
The overnight in a homestay on Amantani and visiting floating islands on this huge sea-like lake was incredible. Very educational and particularly beautiful. The weather was perfect for me - fine and warm at last. We are in the southern hemisphere summer after all!
To get a perspective on how big this fresh water lake is - it is wider than the Gulf of Sinai, you cannot see across it's length north to south, and the snow capped mountains of Bolivia sit on the horizon to the west (A bit like when in Syria you could see the snow capped mountains of Lebanon). It is over 8500km2 (or 3300 miles2) and holds nearly 900 million cubic metres of water. Maybe Bram or Gerry you could convert that to land mass in North Qld and let me know how much it would cover...anyway it's a bloody big lake and all fresh water which they don't use for irrigation. However Bolivia has started selling 'their' water to Chile and Argentina which is like a red rag to a bull to Peru. Peru and Chile are more parochial about each other than Townsville and Cairns, Sydney and Melbourne - in fact it's more like France and England, Germany and Holland.
First point of call was the floating ilsands of Uros. These islands are actually quite close to the Peru mainland (about 40min in a slow boat) and are made of the lake's totora reeds. Where the islands float is about 20m deep and the islands themselves are about 3m thick of reeds constantly being topped up with fresh harvested reeds. By the time the inhabitants leave an island for a fresh built one it will be between 7-10 years old and up to 7m thick of rotting reeds. Only the top 50cm or so is fresh. You can imagine how heavy the island becomes as it gets older, from rotting vegetation and waterlogging. Hence leaving for a fresh built island before the old one sinks. The 'ground' is soft and spongy and slightly damp, with a dry, sweet reed crust. It actually smells quite good - like cut grass - but I'm not sure what it would be like in the wet...
Extended family groups inhabit each island, living very traditional lives, fishing and weaving, farming small subsistance crops like potatoes, chickens and guinea pigs for their own food and barter between islands. They still use barter rather than money as they have very little demand for outside products (read manufactured here). The island we visited had 4 families on it living in reed houses on the reed island. They had chooks (for eggs and meat), a cat (to eat the vermin), guinea pigs (for food not pets), a few small vege patches, a shared kitchen/oven/fire pit, a small live fish trap (basically a hole cut in the island and lined with fishing net, where they kept todays catch fresh). No bathroom or shower rig that I could see. Toileting was down a hole into the lake and any washing was in a bucket with water heated on the open fire. I did see a young girl scrubbing clothes in a bucket...They make their boats out of reeds also and weave and knit all their clothes - lama and alpaca wool is traded from other contenential islands. We made a quick stop at the 'main' island that had a school, shop, public telephone, cafe, and very basic commerical accommodation. There is also a floating school island. But I don't think school is seen as particularly important by these people.
We then cruised for three hours out into the Lake to one of the largest islands (and continental) - Amantani. It is quite mountainous and has been extensively terraced at some point in pre-Inca past. Again, the people live very simple lives based on agricuture and survival in a very small economy. When we arrived on the island we were split into 2's and 3's to go home with our host families. I was put with the other two Aussies (a mother and daughter from Perth) and our host 'Ruth' - pronounced Rut - walked us up the mountain to her home. We nearly died getting up the mountain. At 4000m any incline is pretty hard going and this young girl of 17 was like a mountain goat up the track. Everyone blamed the altitude but I think it is a combination of altitude and lowering fitness...afterall I have been at altitude for over a week now...
Ruth lives with her mum and dad and 5 other siblings (total of 4 girls and 2 boys). She is the youngest at 17 and still at school. One of her sisters has two young children but we didn't meet them. The women never stop spinning or knitting or embroidering. They walk around constantly using their hands to create beautiful craft work, which they wear every day and also sell to visitors. The men are also master embroiderers and must make beautiful pieces for their women to show them how much they are valued. If they sitting down they are either preparing food or weaving. One throw rug takes two weeks of constant work - and I mean dawn til dusk.
They don't have much electricity and it is not wasted on working in the evening. They are up at dawn and go to bed as soon as dinner is finished around 8pm. No bathroom, and an outside toilet (western pan with a drum of water you took a bucket from to 'flush' - I'm sure the flush just went into an open drain that ran down the hill...)
There was one light in their kitchen/eating area and another in our room. The kitchen was about 3m x 6m and had a dirt floor with a table with benches against the far wall for us to eat at; a small low table they sat on the floor at to eat and prep food nearer to the fire; and an open fireplace with space to hang a stew pot and put a griddle over the fire to grill meat and bread. The women cooked but I noticed the youngest son (about 19yo) did all the washing by hand in a bucket out in the garden.
The food was very plain and simple but prepared well and tasty. It was completely vegetarian but I think this was more to protect our western digestions that how they normally eat. They had a great native plant remeniscent of mint/menthol/sage which they used in fresh sprigs in boiling water for tea which was terrific. Must get into fresh herbs rather than tea bags at home. The results are 1000s of times better.
We watched a local soccer game the afternoon we arrived. A couple of the young Japanese men from our group joined in and said later they really struggled to keep up as they were so out of breath. They play on concrete pitches a sort of cross between Futsol and outdoor soccer. Mainly I think for practical reasons - if the ball went out it ran down hill fast and had to be fetched. So the rules encouraged the ball to remain in play!...The local men were not that keen to have our group join the game. They made the visitors wait about 40min til they had finished their game before they would start a 'friendly'. The players though were all sorts - older blokes in the 40's down to young teenagers of about 14. Their ball skills were terrific. I wonder if any European scouts ever get to Amantani....
A huge thunderstorm tracked across the lake in the evening, clearing the evening and bringing more beautiful weather on day two.
Visiting this island was a good way to support the local people directly. So many of the artisans earn very little for their beautiful work. The middle men take all the profit. But here you don't pay much to stay but you buy things direct from them while you are on the island - cutting out the middle man. We had a traditional dance for a couple of hours tonight and all the visitors bought soft drinks for the local ladies who taught us to dance. So the locals got the treat and the money went into their economy. And we were all given hand knitted beanies to 'borrow' while we were there (yes it was cold at night) and we were encouraged to buy them. The money went straight to the knitter (your host). I bought my beanie instead of leaving a tip.
It seems to work quite well.
A beautiful dawn, clear and fresh and QUIET. So quiet. Quieter than the Australian bush. No wildlife to wake you up as the environment is very farmed. And the most glorious view of the Bolivian alps from our window. Not a spec of polution this morning, the air is clear, cold and fresh; the mountains are white with a tinge of pink like almond paste. And a fine blue key line along the edge that meets the sky. The sun is up very early and by 7am looks like 11am. Is it altitude...still not sure...
Off in our boat, chugging through the still waters towards Taquile. This island is very similar to Amantani and we do a walk around the island, enjoying the peace, the views of the lake and the 'soul' of the island. This is where I kept being reminded of all the photos I've seen of the Greek Islands in the meditteranean - except instead of cyprus pines there are Eucalyptus. A very popular tree as it grows fast and is good hard wood for building and cooking. As I walked along the track I noticed one of the local houses had a curtain made of an Australian flag. Most unexpected and made me feel homesick for a few minutes as I absorbed the red, white and blue against the green of the gum trees and blue of the 'ocean'. A thought flittered across my mind - when are we going to make our flag just the blue and white southern cross?...
It was a long trip back across the lake this afternoon. The 3 hours seemed an eternity as the anticlimax of going back to Puno became reality. The wind got up and it was cold out there at altitude on the open water.
Funny little place Puno...very poor and dirty sitting on the shores of this beautiful lake.
# posted by The Essence of Good Taste @ 9:08 AM 
