Ok Im writing this 2 months down the line, its been a while, ive been procrastinating and spending all my internet time just putting photos on the journal and not actually telling you about the whole experience. Ive had to deal with some of the most vexing computors known to man though, slow is not the word.
So Lake Titicaca, the worlds highest navigable lake. 3800m above sea level. Its massive too, soo big it actually looks like a sea or an ocean as it endlessly goes on to infinity.
We did a 3 day boat tour of its islands and met a few of its inhabitants. Firstly to the Uros islands, floating islands made soley from reeds. Hundreds of small islands that the people live on, constantly renewing the reed so they dont sink. We were introduced to a small family on an island, everything on the island is reed, houses, boats. They have mainly come to rely on tourism as income other than that, its trout, selling it to the mainland. We were greeted by two of the biggest, darkest, peruvian ladies i have ever seen which was odd because Peruvians are tiny for a start, so these ladies obviously dont get much excercise on there tiny island. Quite a sight, all these tiny islands on the lake made entirely from reed.
Lake Titicaca is large and has many different islands all with different cultures and styles but the landscapes on the islands, the deep blue skys and scorched lands really reminded me the Mediteranean, like being on a Greek island at times.
From the Uros islands we went over to Amantani, another small island, a real island with a mountain, well considering we were already at 3800m on water we didnt have to hike to far to call it a mountain. We stayed with a family. Mum, Dad with 2 daughters and a son. Mum spoke only Quechua but Dad and the kids did speak spanish. It was a quaint little farm with 4ft doorways. Me and John got our own building to sleep in, which im sure was a barn for the sheep at some point. With 5ft 4 beds, newspaper for wallpaper and bubble wrap for carpet, designer! So John being 6ft 4 slightly hung over the beds, and his head touched the ceiling. That evening our family took us up the hill, but firstly dressed us up which im always game for, in the tradiditonal styleee. Me in a rainbow embroidered corset wrapped around me a million times. A big flowing twirly, black embroidered skirt that really rose when i twirled, plus a black embroidered shawl that hung from my head. All of this was over my regular clothes, trousers, t-shirt, fleece, so i was wrapped up like a baby. John got it easy with a poncho and a Chullu (cone like beany with flaps over the ears). So up the hill we went to the local discotheque or barn dance. To dance to the pan pipes and banging drums of Amantani. Quality. I got to dance with dad, who wasnt much of a mover. The dance moves consisted of swing your hips, twiz the skirt, clasp the hands and move backwards and forwards, and all this so he could get a beer from us.
So onwards the next day, we left our temporary family behind, with 2 chulllu`s in hand onto the next intriguing island of Taquile. Different island altogether, different dress stylee. The men all knitt, it´s how they show they are worthy of a wife. I can see that going down a treat in Liverpool. They wear what looks like long bed hats, and depending on what side they wear it is whether they are spoken for. The girls, its all in the pom poms on there shawls, the bigger the pom poms means they are married. Now when the ladies marry, they cut off their long hair and they weave a belt from it for their husbands. The belt is really long and used to wrap around the waist and lower back to protect ther backs from the heavy loads they have to carry. This island has no cars or bikes, just donkeys and people, so they have to carry everything themselves. Amazing. Seeing people living with basics and with out the complexities we come to rely on is very inspiring and their simplicity is beautiful.
We finished the tour of the islands and returned to the mainland to head on to the Bolivian side of the lake, its split in half. Crossed the border into Bolivia no bother and headed onto Copacobana, a small little town with a reputation of muggings for victims heading into la Paz on local buses, needless to say we steared clear of these and boarded the tourist bus. Anyway Copacobana, its lovely, has a beach vibe to it, right on the shores of the lake, great trout, lots of little bars, quite a destination for Bolivians too. From here we headed out to get onto the Isla Del Sol out on the lake. A 4 hour trek down the lakeside onto yampupata on election day, it was like everyone disappeared, boarded up shops the lot, 3 hours into the trek we did wonder if we where actually going to get to the island. Treking at 3800m is very, very tiring even if it is flat roads. Finally made it to the port and jumped on a boat with a hoard of Danish guys and finally convinced the boat guys to take us to the north island, with much argument though as they advised us about a bit of civil unrest in the north island, but we got there. It was the most tranquil island ive ever been on. Apparently the south islanders are trying to monopolise the tourism to the south asland and boycott all travel to the north and they have a deal with the mainlanders to take all tourist to the south island, but we overcome this and it was more beautiful in the north island. At sunset with the pink sky looming the farmers brought home all their animals from the fields along the shore line, masses of sheep, cows, donkeys, llamas, dogs, horses and pigs, a huge aray of amimals all trotting home for the night so they didnt freeze out in the fields.
