Floating Islands and the Birthplace of the Incans

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After our lovely experience with the mountain biking and the crazy monkey we decided to take it easy for a few days and hang out on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigatable lake in the world... luckily we managed to be in Copacabana (on the Bolivian side of the lake) for an extension of Carnaval - which I´m beginning to think that the celebrations never actually end! The entire town was involved in parades, dancing in the streets, singing, playing terribly off-key music in outdoor bands and getting incredibly intoxicated... but not too drunk to forget to offer some of their booze of choice to Pachamama (a little swig dumped on the ground is enough to keep her satiated!).

Our second day at the lake we took a tour to the Isla del Sol - Island of the Sun - where we were treated to some local folklore and history (?). Apparently the island is the mythological birthplace of the sun and the moon and where the Gods created the first Incans. We actually got to touch the rocks where they were first seen, as well as got to see a shaman´s tools on the ancient sacrificial rock where they used to slit the throats of virgins!!! The young ladies were raised on the Isla de la Luna (of the Moon) and then brought over while they were good and innocent and sacrificed to the Gods. Luckily this is one of the traditions that WASN´T continued when the Incan empire declined!

We took the long way around to get to the other side of the island - a 4 hour walk along the peaks of the rolling hills and mountains on a trail that was similar to those that the Incans used during their rule - paved with flat stones and bordered by a small wall of similar rocks to guide us along the way.
For almost the entire 4 hours we were able to see the lake on both sides, the Peruvian and Bolivian islands, lots of llamas and sheep and terraced cultivated hills from back in the Incan times.
Lauren had the good luck to interact with one of the locals - a flock of sheep was heading towards us on the pathway and her and Richard whipped out their cameras and took some pictures of the sheep (and not the herder, as they often get offended when you snap photos without permission). The woman sat up after ducking out of the pictures and walked towards us with her hands stretched out. I thought that she just wanted to see the photos, but she kept repeating ´give me money!´. Now, Im all for paying people to take pictures of them, but she wasn´t in it and only the sheep were - so I told her that... ahah, well, we turned around and walked away and she ended up smacking Lauren on the butt with her sheep whip!!! I heard a scream and turned around and the woman had the biggest grin on her face and L was rubbing her poor butt. I feel bad, but I did laugh pretty hard - it was quite amusing.

The next day we crossed the Bolivian/Perú border and rucked up in Puno. We did a tour of the floating islands and Taquile... a day we got incredibly burned even with 30 sunscreen on and bought wayyyy too many little bracelets from cute little girls...
The Floating Islands are actually man-made reid floating platforms that people build their houses on and live happily ever after with 5-10 families, until they get in fights, and then they just cut part of the island away and start all over again! We got to stop off on a smaller island with only 8 families, a few cats and one guard-Heron who actually chased me around the house (why is it that animals hate me so much these days?). The islands are about 5-10m deep and are actually made from layers and layers of dried and rotting reids that the families collect and lay down over the months they live there. They also make their houses, beds, towers and boats from the reids - and they eat the soft fruit in the middle! Crazy!
For a mere 5 soles each we were ferried across the lake to the bigger island that has been lived on for so long it´s actually become a REAL island, not just floating - and were serenaded by a little girl who claimed to sing in 6 different languages. It was pretty adorable when she busted out ´Twinkle Twinkle¨ but didn´t actually sing a single word in English - it was just gibberish with a good tune - but as Lauren said, I doubt that anyone actually had the heart to tell her the real words. We got the point and she made quite a bit of cash from all the people paying her for the great entertainment!
After that we headed to the Isla de Taquile - where people are attempting to live in a commune-like environment - they have no politicians, no dogs and no policemen on the island (anyone else find it ironic that dogs and policemen are in the same gourping?), and they have 22 restaurants that only servce one dish, trout, and all at the same price. People work together, share the profits from the visiting tourist tax and have a knitting collective that sells toques and scarves and sweaters to the hundreds of gringos that pass through.
It was a little odd to learn that even though they had access to water pumps they still walked down the 200m almost-vertical stairway to the water every day (and sometimes multiple times a day) to collect their drinking water and the water for daily activities (cooking, washing, flushing toilets etc.) Something tells me that there really has to be a better way of getting water!!!

Anyway - now we´re in Cusco, to make a long story short and Mike and I are just sitting here getting caught up on pictures and emails home... for some reason or another this computer isn´t letting me put up any pictures, so now Im super behind. We leave on the Machu Picchu hike tomorrow and won´t be getting back until Thursday night - and flying out bright and early on Friday to Ecuador. Moral of the story is that I wont be able to put up pictures for awhile, and I apologize for that. I´ll be adding the ones from the bike ride, the lake, a tour bus trip we took along an Incan trail between Puno and Cusco, some pictures of Cusco, of Mikey´s arrival and hopefully of our white water river rafting that we did yesterday. What adventures we´ve been having!

Thanks for keeping up to date everyone - talk to everyone soon as we´re down to 3 weeks and we´re home!
C

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