This entry covers 8 - 10 November
8 November
I spent the afternoon strolling the streets of Puno with Blair and Maurene and bought fruit as gifts for our home stay on the island tomorrow. I also bumped into a panting John (suffering from water on the lungs from the altitude) and decided to take some time out over a coffee on a tiny balcony overlooking Puno’s Plaza de Armas (Moysa Café).
9 November
Lake Titicaca (Taquile & Amantani home stay):
Today we took a 35km barge ride onto Lake Titicaca.
Some stats...
- titi: puma, caca: grey, puma of grey colour)
- 3810m above sea level, 165km long, 60km wide, deepest point: 275m, 50/50 between Peru & Bolivia, 5 native and 2 exotic fish (trout, kingfish), the local monster of the water is a 45cm frog discovered by Jacque Custo.
Our 1st stop was Taquile Island. We scaled hillside to a tiny little restaurant with a magnifiscent view of the lake below. I mowed through trout for lunch (so much for loss of appetite at altitude!) and Manuel (the local tour guide) gave us a brief history of the island and its traditions. I decided that our group also needed a bit of culture and managed to convince the men that Movember is the way forward with the ultimate achievement being a handful of smiling moustaches at the peak of the Inca Trail!
We had a crash course on Quechua on our way to Amantani Island where we were greeted by our families. Lukresha took us up to her humble abode to drop off our bits and pieces where we met the rest of the family. We kept climbing to the island’s concrete sports ground where we took on the local lighties in a game of soccer. A coke was agreed to be the winners’ prize and provided the necessary incentive to take the heart rate up to 180…only to discover that this was a basic appearance fee for the locals after a memorable 2-1 victory to the Gringo’s!
Peter, John and I crammed into our family’s tiny kitchen come dining room for dinner…I couldn’t help smiling at the absurd conversations torn between Quechua, Spanish, English and Swedish…One times tired Peter was our saviour with some Spanish to draw on but kept translating into Swedish instead of Spanish. Peter is really coming into his own and is pure entertainment…the striking resemblance with Peter Selles from the Pink Panther is remarkable…the foreign accent overpowering his English translations all the while his mind ticking over as if from another planet!
Peter expressions: “Goods heaven!”
and following me questioning his dancing skills he replied with
“Its funny” instead of “Its fun”…
even better is the fact that he laughs out loud at his mispronunciations which relieves us holding back our laughter. We handed over our gifts of fruit, myre and gold (felt like the 3 kings from the Bible!) and cashed in on the Borat greeting of kisses on both cheeks. The highlight of the home stay was definitely the evening in the town hall where we were treated to both local and mixed (local & Gringo) dancing to tunes passed down though the centuries.
10 November
I spent the next morning on a nearby hilltop lying in the morning sun before returning for breakfast at 7am. As I rounded the corner to the house I was confronted with a rather awekward situation…whether to treat the half naked Lukresha cleaning herself over a bowl of water as the norm, or make a right turn and heading for the hills...I decided to go with the former seeing as I was too committed to the moment by the time she realized I was there.
Uros Floating Islands
On our way back to Puno we stopped off at Lake Titicaca´s floating islands which had its roots 600 years ago when the Uros people decided to use 1000´s of reed boats to hide from the all conquering Inca´s. Over time, the Uros decided to join forces out on the lake by connecting their reed boats together creating 60 islands which currently boasts electricity, a junior school and Viking looking reed boats for the tourists to be paddled about by stout oresmen with the thickest fingers I´ve ever come across.
I seem to be coming up with pearler quotes. the most recent directed at Suzanne (my surrogate mother from Canada) thanking her for breaking wind given the chilly wind that was sweeping across the lake!
Once back on land, the majority of the group decided to make tracks for the Yuvari Steamboat. The Captain of this 146 year old gunboat (Carlos Saavedra) was an absolute beauty who not only gave us insightful stories about the history of this legendary vessel but also threw in his views on the how the industrial revolution formed the basis of everything we discover today, the plight of the Peruvians and the country´s blunders in South American politics, the overdone Incas, and even threw in his thoughts on life...¨one can´t change the past, only manipulate the future¨ and ¨never stop travelling¨... The Yavari was 1 of 5 ships ordered by the Peruvian government to look after the country´s important waters (the coastline, Lake Titicaca and the Amazon Basin). The ship arrived at Lake Tititica in 2766 pieces. Aside from the fact that this boat needed to be assembled on sight, it also needed to be hauled by mules over the Andes taking 6 years from the UK to Lake Titicaca. After 15 years of service on the Yuvuri, Captain Saavedra had decided not to be held down by the routine of society and is heading north in December to skipper a ship from the Carribean to the Bulge of Africa where he intends to make a new life for himself...what a passionate man!
No comments:
Post a Comment