One Way United

We arrived in Puno, Peru and within a half an hour of arrival we had found a hostel, booked a 2 day tour to see the floating islands, and bought a bus ticket to Cusco leaving the night we got back.  It was probably the most effecient half hour of our entire trip!

A van picked us up early in the morning from our hostel and drove to the port where our boat was waiting.  Our tour had between 15-20 people, from all areas of the world.  Our guide spoke English and Spanish fluently but maybe for the first time in my life it felt like I didn´t need the English translation.  I understood everything this guy said in Spanish almost perfectly. 

After an hour or so, we came upon our first floating island.  These islands, built mainly of reeds, are literally floating on the surface of the water.  On the islands, everything is made of reeds: the houses, the boats, everything.  The inhabitants of the floating islands have a rich history that goes back years and years but, the past 30 years or so, tourists have dominated the history of these islands.  I was talking to a local islander on a reed boat that happened to have 500 plastic bottles in it, and he talked to me a little bit about the growing tourist trend.  He said that 30 years ago there were very few tourists and now hundreds show up everyday on their small, humble islands.  Tourism has become the main focus of the islanders. 

There are several floating islands in Lake Titicaca now but there only used to be two.  When there was fighting within ancient islands, the way the conflict was solved was often to seperate the island in half and then as time passed, they would float away from each other.  This all seems very bizarre to me since I am still unsure how exactly these islands float in the first place!

After visiting a couple of these floating islands, we motored for another 3 hours to Isla Armantani (a real island), where we would spend the night.  The guide placed us into different familes homes on the island and Julian, Adam, and I walked up the hill to meet our family.  Our family spoke poor Spanish as their first language is Quechua, and we had fun trying to communicate with them.  They made us a nice lunch which consisted of Quinua soup (a type of vegetable), potatoes, and Munya tea.  The tea consisted of simply hot water and a couple of local mint leaves that grow there that is supposed to help with stomach and altitude problems.  After that we climbed to the top of a hill where an ancient Incan temple was located called Pachatata which means Father Earth.  The view there was outstanding and we watched as the sun sank down below the water.  It was a very beautiful sunset as the pictures will attest.

We then ate dinner, which was similar to the lunch, and prepared for the fiesta.  Apparently this community throws a fiesta everyday for the tourists, who are required to dress in traditional Incan custume.  The party was very entertaining as local musicians ¨rocked out¨ on their wooden flutes and the local girls were not shy at all about asking the hesitant tourists to dance.  The dance was very simple in that you only held hands with the other person, swung your hands back and forth, and occasionally did some type of twirl or twist or something which I, of course, would mess up.  After each song there would be a break and the local girls would run away from their partners, giggling and whispering to each other, no doubt making fun of the rhythmless tourists.  The funnest moment was when there was a large group of us all holding hands in a circle and as the music picked up, people would start running in the same direction and then somebody would unexpectedly change directions or something, leaving everybody to being pulled in different directions. 

The next morning we got up early, said goodbye to our family, and boated to another non-floating island.  We spent 3 hours or so on this other island but it was pretty uneventul as we didn´t really see anything new and there were tons of tourists there and we could not figure out why.  There were many cute little girls, of course, that would try to sell us stuff and it took much effort to say no! 

After that jaunt, we motored back to Puno, waited around for a few hours, and then took a bus to the tourist metropolis of Cusco.  There is a reason why so many tourists flock to Cusco as this town is very accomodating and there are so many amazing things (in other words, ruins) to see nearby.  Cusco used to be the center of the mighty Incan Empire and there are many ruins located within only 8 kilometers from the city.  The main tourist attraction is, of course, Machu Picchu.  We are planning on starting the Inca trail to Mach Picchu in a couple of days.  We had to book 3 months in advance to get this spot as Machu Picchu, in the last 10 years, has become one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world.  After that, we will rest for a few days, and then head on another adventure to yet another ruin, Choquekiraw.  This ruin is higher than Machu Picchu and twice as big, but is much, much, much, much less touristic than Machu Picchu and onc can only get there by taking a hard two day trek through the mountains.

We have met back up with Fabrice, who is doing Machu Picchu and Choquekiraw with us.  Today Fabrice, Adam, and I went horseback riding to see some of the ruins nearby.  It was Adam´s first time on a horse and my first time since I was very small.  We enjoyed it so much that we are thinking that it would be fun to ride horses to Choquekiraw!  However, this would be much more expensive so we will probably not do it. 

Anyway, if you want to read more on Cusco click here: http://ianwalk.com/2006/04/  Ian Reeves, who is walking from the southern tip of South America to the the northern tip of Alaska, describes the town very well and in a very humerous way.  Anyway, that concludes the Lake Titicaca series and our next post will probably not be until after we have seen Machu Picchu!  Peace out, and love ya all!

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