From the bus station, we told the taxi the name of the hostel we were staying in, Quechua Backpackers. The taxi had no idea of our interpretation on the pronunciation and we couldn't show him the name or address as we only had this on the Internet. A lady overheard us and then spoke to the taxi pronouncing it correctly and giving him directions - thanks to her we had a place to stay that night. Embarrassingly Quechua is their local language, we couldn't even work that out from the spelling. From now on we write down the name and address of each hostel so we can give it to the taxi and are going to make a point of thinking more South American for our pronunciations.
We quizzed Leo, the manager at Quechua Backpackers, about the home stay options and he told us how we could do it ourselves or take a "tour" - the package was not much more so we booked for the 80 Soles (£20).
Some Chileans, Argentineans and Peruvians joined us at the pickup on the same package. At the small harbour I went to the market and bought batteries, rice and milk as suggested by Leo as a gift for the home stay family.
All of the boats for the transfer are the same and dead slow - we couldn't work out if the boats are restricted on the lake (but there are some fast 1 day tour boats) or whether they'e generally just slow boats. We puttered along towards the reed islands.
Uros is one of 2 well known reed islands, a 50 sq meters man made island. Quite something to visit with 8 families housed on the island and it anchored in position in the lake. Originally this reed island was built to escape attack on the main land and the families have continued to live on and further build islands. As you can imagine, fish is their usual meal.
Amantini is a larger island with two mountain peaks and the whole island groomed for agriculture. Santa Rosa is the small village we stayed in - their small port was lined with ladies all in village dress to meet us, these were our hosts. Our guide called out names of hosts and matched to home stayers. We were first and it seemed we landed up with the main host family.
A broken greeting and away we walked with Dionescia and her grandson, Junior. We ascended the steep walkway from the dock and wound through to her house. It was very basic with a clay ground courtyard and buildings surrounding it. Grandparents and one daughter with 2 children lived there. We were taken upstairs to our room... Problem ... The door took me up to my chest! I ducked through and luckily I could stand in the room, only just.
We dropped our bags and headed into the courtyard awkwardly trying to figure out what to do next. 5 minutes later we were called in for lunch starting with soup and then cheese (like halloumi) potatoes and vegetables - really good. Triple tea consisting of Munas - oxygen releasing plant helping with altitude breath shortage, Coca leaves - altitude, alertness, suppress appetite and Eucalyptus leaves - dry throats, rounded off the meal. We continued broken conversations with Dionescia and her 2 daughters Sabina and Julia.
Sabina's kids, Miguel and Junior, played outside with their cousin and a balloon tied to the washing line. This was endless laughter and proof that all kids are the same. I handed over the present of batteries, milk and rice and they eagerly accepted.
Again, we were ushered to our room for quiet time until we were taken to meet up with the group. It was breathless walking with the altitude, where Dionescia took it in her stride. We stopped outside a tuck shop style shop and I offered to buy the kids and Dionescia a sweet. They'd had this offer before as each went for a pack of biscuits or wafers as opposed to the single bars. Interestingly, no straight chocolate or sugar - mainly biscuit.
Miguel and Junior were entertained by the camera and liked looking at photos of themselves. We've found this with all ages over Peru and Ecuador. Plazas often have "professional" camera men taking photos of families with sites in the background. They then run off to a shop and print the digital photo and return it. Our porters on the inca trail were also very curious to see the images in the camera.
Our group walked up the stone path to the Pacha Tata (Father Earth) ruins on top of one of the mountains. Pacha Tata and Pacha Mama are gods representing earth and are made offerings for agriculture. although 90% of South American countries are Catholic, they have a fusion with other indigenous religions and continue to carry out such rituals. Local ladies were dotted along the path selling woven goods and snacks. Munas plants, as we'd had before, provided a good oxygen rescue when breaking them and inhaling.
Good views across the island. We were also told that you could walk around the Pacha Tata walled garden 3 times, place a stone in the wall and make a wish.
Back at the house and it was dinner time. Dionescia's husband, Presentor, was now around. He joined us for dinner and we made broken conversation - really wish we knew more Spanish now. Mands did a whole lot better than me. They have had solar energy now for the past 3 years and that was allowing good developments to their daily life (and lesser need for batteries).
It was time for the village to gather at the hall for a fiesta, but not before we were proudly handed out traditional village dress! Presentor and Dionescia took us through for the dance. Dionescia jumped up and pulled us up for each song - each song we'd start in small groups and half way through join into one big circle holding hands and running around with our hands waving. I was tentative with granny Dionescia, but she was having no problem flinging us around.
Breakfast was more good food and 2 large crumpets followed by a third that I had little chance to accept before it landed on my plate.
Just as we started, Dionescia and Junior and now Presentor escorted us back to the boat. Really good experience in Amantini. It was great to see the closeness of the families and how the families who had very little and no modern "must haves" were happy with what they had. Also that the tourist trips were quite empowering as income for women on the islands.
Back in Puno we had a couple of cevercas and dinner before heading back to the hostel. En route back the roads were in full carnival flow with thousands of people. Band after band with dancers paraded around. The strangest were groups of men with dead armadillos mounted on sticks that made a snapping noise when spun round!?!
We'd booked bus tickets to cross to Bolivia from our hostel, but there was a problem getting the right tickets delivered the next morning. We became more and more anxious with little information and lack of tickets - the next thing a car arrives, saying it's here to pick us of to get the tickets from the bus station. We launched in knowing we had no time to spare. Our guide from the island tour then appeared unexpectedly and was our fixer, guiding us from counter to counter and finally onto the bus as it was pulling out the terminal! Off to Bolivia!
No comments:
Post a Comment