Advertisement
Published: June 13th 2010
Macho en el Poncho
It was absolutely freezing once the sun went down (no wonder people living in this climate worshiped the sun, other than agriculture and all that) so my host family lent me this awesome poncho.Hola! Buenos Dias!
Its been a while since I last wrote and a lot has happened - this will be a long update so I'll try to jazz it up with lots of fun pictures, enjoy!
6/9 - I met Walter early at my hotel and we took a taxi to the spot where all the Colectivos (private owned, route-specific 15 passenger vans that seem to be in a competition with each other over exactly how many people can fit into a 15 passenger van) leave from. Then we took a Colectivo to the peninsula where Karine is. The bus is full of Aymara-speaking Peruvians, which is the local language and culture of this peninsula. Walter writes me a short list of Aymara phrases, with the help of some of the other passangers. Most of the passangers are dropped off well before Karine and this means the bus will not continue to Karine for two people, so we have to walk (with my stupid full backpack) quite a ways to get to Karine.
Karine is a purely agricultural community with farms covering every peice of land not covered by a house, with one main dirt road through the
town and animals of all kinds grazing about. We wander through these fields on this dirt road to get to the house where I would stay. The family didn´t get advance notice because I hadn´t given walter much notice so we arrive to the house and must find the family, who eventually do come by. Although I feel like my spanish has gotten a hundred times better, its still pretty stretches and Walter does all the talking. While I am thankful for this, it also means that my host family hardly speaks to me directly and this makes me feel more like a tourist than a house guest. But I guess thats what I am.
Now I should take a minute to describe what CEDESOS is exactly - they are a nonprofit that works to support communities and help them develop properly to take advantage of the tourist boom, as opposed to what happens in most places, which is that outside companies (based in the city) lead tours through, make all the money and alienate the locals in their own homes. One way Cedesos does this is by giving low interest microloans to the families so they can develop
individual mini-hostels next to their homes. This is where I stayed - I had my own room and bathroom that was built as if another part of the house. I ate my meal in my room, cooked in the family kitchen by the mother (or daughter or other relative or neighbor). This is a pretty new paradigm for community-run tourism and has been successful in some other areas of Peru, where many community (not lucky enough to have this opportunity) have been ravaged and ruined and exploited by city-based tour agencies. My trip however was one of the first of this program, which is very new, so it was not exactly a great example of a well organized program but instead I got a really interesting view of small community life and how these programs are developed and started up.
Once settled, Walter and I go for a walk to a nearby community - to be honest, I´m not sure why and I was wondering why I wasn´t starting to workon the farm right away but my limited spanish put me in this situation repeatedly and I found it best to go with the flow. I did get a
great informal tour of the peninsula, hiking up and down large hills and walking through farms. Walter and I did our best to communicate - him teaching me a lot of spanish and me teaching him a lot of english. He is starting up his own tour agency, separate from Cedesos and wants to improve his english. We get to a house that looks very different from the others, which are mostly one story huts built of mud bricks with straw or corrugated metal roofs. rooves? ...neither is right in spanish so it doesn´t matter to me. This house we walk up to is made entirely of reeds, bound together with small rope. Walter explains his friend lives here and he is not from this culture or community, he is from the Uros Islands. (Educational note: the Uros are floating islands on Lake Titicaca, built a long time ago by an Aymara-influenced but Quechua-speaking tribe hoping to escape a nearby violent tribe without a war. The islands are build of a certainkind of reed - which is also eaten and used for building the houses. There are many small and large islands, the main ones have faired very badly over
the last few decades due to abusive tourism, see above. The largest have become mostlycommercial but there are still genuine traditional islands on the lake as well.) We still with his friend and his wife while they untangle a very long fishing net and Walter talks shop with him. I can´t translate directly but he got a long list of names of people on the islands for his future tour business. I want to assume that Walter plans on running another form of community-run tourism there but this was a little beyond my scope of spanish to ask.
We return home for lunch and the food is incredible - quinoa soup (a peruvian traditional food) and rice, potatos and a carrot/cheese salad. The cheese is homemade and to be honest, I didn´t like it that much because it was kind of squeeky when I chewed but otherwise the food was delicious. The meal was concluded, like all the rest that I had here, with muña tea - see the photo on this page. After lunch I thought I´d start working but Walter said this (in spanish) "You have options for what to do next. You can go on a
boatride to this nearby geological formation." It sounded okay but I was interested in doing some work and learning about their farm here so I said whats the other option? He looked at me like I had been insulting, looked at the father of the household and said ´he wants more options´ and then i felt really bad and said nevermind, Id like to do the boat thing. So we went out on the a boat that the father, Mariano, borrowed from someone else and he rowed us about 30 minutes to this cool natural rock formation over the lake. We took the boat through it and headed back - it was kind of cool but at this point I was disappointed to feel more like a tourist and less like a farm volunteer. I don´t think I was mislead I think it was a combination of my bad spanish and a very new program starting out.
Once we got home, we were asked to do one task: bring the sheep in from grazing to their holding pen for the night. Mostly this meant walking around, untying them and making a sound to make them run away from you
in the right directly. It was pretty simple and most of the sheep were already there when I turned and realized Alex (the little boy in my host family who I have probably spent more time communicating with than anyone else in the family) was chasing a baby sheep who has gotten seperated. First I took a picture because it was so damn cute,then I went to go help him and what ensued was ridiculous. The little bugger got scared and ran away really fast and I gave chase and ended up chasing this baby sheep across multiple fields at top speed - with Walter, my host Mama and whoever else was around laughing histerically (I was, too). I didn´t even win in the end, the mama sheep hear the bleating of her baby and broke ranks, running towards her child. Once reunited, the mama turned around to join the herd and the baby followed without a problem.
Next I followed Walter to what I learned was a work shop lead by Cedesos for community members on how to cook for tourists. I felt bad as I was a huge distraction when I walked in and everything stopped so
people could ask me questions, some of which I understood. Before I left, Freddy (one of the Cedesos staff) took my picture with all the women cooking and all the kids, as if I had been doing something important there. I think they were excited to have a tourist. Next Walter and I went to one of his friends in the community who is having a room and bathroom put in with Cedesos money for a tourist, he was super excited to give us a tour. AFter showing us the bathroom, he insisted we all go into the bathroom together and he wanted to show us the hot water. It actually wasn´t that hot but the look of pride in his face, I acted really excited for his hot water shower and flush toilet. Last for the evening was dinner - barley soup (another locally grown grain) and probably something delicious that I don´t remember. And of course, muna tea.
In case you are wondering, that was one day.
10/6- Breakfast was a delicious quinoa-flour pancake, and arroz con leche (a milk and rice bowl that is better than it sounds, I think there was a lot of
sugar in it). Walter explains he´s going to another community to do work but Mariano will come in an hour and I´ll work with him on the farm, doing something with potatos. He leaves and I´m sitting outside, I decide to offer to help Juana (host mother) because I have nothing to do and I feel bad sitting around doing nothing. I offered help: "Puedo ayudar con algo?" (Can I do something to help?) she said yes and leads me to sit down in the kitchen. She then puts some food in a bowl and hands it to me, to eat. I eat a little but honestly I´m full because I just finished breakfast, i tell her that and give it back. A few minutes later I try again, most specifically this time - Puedo ayudar con llavando los platos (Can I help with washing the dishes?), she lets me help her drag a big container of clothing for washing outside into the sun, then she takes out a chair for me to sit on a few feet away and she tells me to sit, and starts working.
I give up trying to help and try reading my lonely
Shore line
I sorta only put this photo in because I want the photos to line up correctly with the story. planet spanish book, for next time. Clearly there was a misunderstanding here. I read for a while and realize its been more than an hour, Mariano isn´t here and I´m tired. I lay down for a bit until there is a know at my door. Freddy, two other women from Cedesos and a white guy walk in. The white guy introduces himself as Ivan - he is Peruvian (with Russian ancestors) and speaks english! He works for an organization that brings volunteers from abroad to do work in communities in the area. Currently they only work in another community over, but he´s on a tour today of Karine to see if it is a good candidate for the program. He asks me about my stay so far, about the food and the bathrooms, etc. I tell him all good things, I want him to like Karine and bring volunteers. Once we are done, he offers that I can come along with them, I say that Mariano is supposed to come and I´m supposed to help him work but on the way out I see Mariano, who tells me to go with them.
Our tour is really great and I
get a really unique view of Karine because they treat Ivan like a dignitary from a far off and powerful country. We see the rooms they have built for handicraft workshops and other uses like community meetings. Then we go to the school, which is run by the church, and get to meet the whole gang. First we go through Kingergarten where the teachers have the children say hello in english and sing the colors song, which is to the tune of Frera Jioaca (i don´t know how to spell it, its that french song) but the words are ´rojo red rojo red azul blue azul blue amarillo yellow amarillo yellow verde green verde green´. It was cute and my friend Alex (the miniature sheep herder) was in this class and got so excited to see me, we did our secret handshake and he tried to get his friends to watch.
Next we went on a tour of the campus for the older kids, met with many teachers and the principal. I should mention this whole Ivan is talking a mile a minute to all the teachers and adults about why he is here. I'm not sure if anyone
explains why I´m there, I would have been interested to know. But I was introduced by Freddy to each person as ´my friend from the united states´ and no one questioned it. After alot of talking and touring the facilities (including a crazy looking garden - pictures of this if Ivan ever sends me them), Ivan and I sit down near the playground area and talk about tourism, the effects on this area and others. About the disease of materialism that he says has swept Peru in the last few years - an export from the USA, along with iPhones and Nike, he says. As we talk, children come over to stand next to us and eventually a game of ball begins while we talk.
A little later a school teach comes over and asks Ivan if he is any good with computers because they have just recieved a whole bunch of news ones but they aren´t connected yet. He volunteers me because he knows I am a graphic designers, but we go together into the school and help them set up these machines - all but one are very new, donated by the gov´t, I think. We are
done and I am showing the women how to use some of the programs, without using words obviously, and Walter arrives to pick me up from school. Haha, no actually school for the younger kids is over and my host mama and walter have come to pick up Alex, without even realizing I was there. We all go home for lunch which is something yummy, though I can´t remember what. I bet it included a soup of quinoa or barley.
After lunch we take a rest and then set out towards another community - Walter has tried to tell me what for but I´m only clear it involves photographing a family. I thought my host family but we started walking far and I realized I had no idea where we were going again! Eventually we arrived at someone´s house, and the husband, wife and kids go back into the house quickly to - I learned - change into traditional clothing. It turns out (I learn this over time but I'll just tell all now) that we are visiting two families hoping to advertise their new hostel accomodations but they don't have cameras. My role here is photography and I
later sent the photos to Walter, who got them back to the families... somehow. So we have a fun photo shoot, including the insides of each room, the bathroom (they each insisted) and kitchen. This was super fun and I considered in a karmic reward because I had been trying really hard to be careful with my camera and not make anyone feel uncomfortable by taking their picture. This means I missed hundreds of great shots along my travels but this was a great little kickback for good behavoir, as I really enjoyed taking these pictures.
That night a great dinner, we awkwardly settled the bill and said goodbyes. The plan for tomorrow is to catch a 5am bus back to Puno - the only other bus to town is at 1pm and Walter has work to do and I have emailing to do.
11/6
This morning is a super long story but this post is so long I'll make it short. Walter woke me up at 6:30 with a vague story that the bus never came. I don´t quite get it but whatever. We talk over the options, which include a 2.5 hour walk to another town
(with my whole bag on my back) or a boat ride to catch another boat (which will cost me S/30). I tell him I dont want to pay that much and the walk sounds a little intense, I say maybe waiting until 1pm is the best option. He seems to really want to get to work and offers "What if I pay 10 and you pay 20 for the boat?" I hadn´t realized that I was paying for both of our fairs. I told him that I would only pay if we split it even and he accepted. We then began the long walk to the boat, which he didn´t mention. We arrived to his Uros friend, who has a boat. His friend agrees to take us but finds his boat with no gasoline. He walks to buy gas from someone somewhere and we are off.
The ride is nice though my mood is slightly soured by Walter´s attempt to get me to pay for his ride. This mood is lifted when our plans change and we go instead to a nearby Uros Island. As I said before (were you paying attention?), there are many floating islands - the
ones mostly seen and easy to get to by ferry are highly commerical and some claim the islanders don´t even sleep there. There are, however according to Lonely Planet, authentic floating islands but you have to have a private boat (and, I´d add, an invitation would be nice). Well, it seems that Walter´s friend had an invitation because he used to live on an Uros Island. We got off on the island and Walter did his networking thing, collecting names and numbers. I sat there and stared in awe at the fact that I was sitting on a floating island.
We discovered that a few of the islanders were heading to a nearby shore and we took a ride in their boat, leaving our Uros friend. The ride was pleasant and short, involving not one but two public breastfeedings. I thought about sharing my girlfriend´s interest in being a lactation consultant but decided against it. From the shore, we waited a while on the side of the road for a colectivo (ten point if you´re paying enough attention to remember what that is) and got a ride to Capachica. From there we waited for another colectivo to Puno. Then
a taxi to my hostel, shake hands and farewell to Walter (and exchange of email addresses of course).
After a shower, I feel human again and go out to do emails and grab food. Later in the evening I meet Ivan out at a bar along with his german-born, peruvian-raised friend from school. We had a few drinks, it was nice to just relax and be able to speak english and not be in a ´'tourist' situation. Even if we were in a gringo bar listening to all american music in Peru. Who cares?
12/6
I decided the night before not to set an alarm and sleep in, instead of my original plan to go to Amantani Island. But the sun wakes me up at 6:30a and I decide its a sign I should go. I quickly pack my things and put my big bag in storage at the hostel. By the way, if I´m keeping this blog partly as a journal and party as a advice for other web-surfing travellers I should give some practical information. The hostal I have been staying at during each night at Puno is excellent. Its called Duque Inn, its a short
walk up a big hill from the Plaza de Armas.
Anyway, I decide I don´t want to spend the night on the island because I feel alittle weird about going in the first place but think that if I take a community run boat and just wander for the day and leave, I have almost no impact. But everyone says to stay over so I decide not to decide. I leave my bags in storage and bring just my small bag with basics. I walk to the port, past the touts selling travel agency tours to the islands and board a community-run boat. Its filled to the brim with imports from the mainland - cocacola, vegetables, concrete, you name it - someone is bringing it over to sell. I started off in the cabin below and it filled up slowly as did the outside and the top level of the cabin. As soon as we left, this one guy who was obviously drunk took out a six back of Cusquena (a beer from Peru, very good though less at 730am) and a plastic cup. Everyone around smiles and nodded in agreement. Then began a strange ritual of sorts that seemed
perfectly natural to everyone around me. One person poured a cup and passed the beer to be held by the next person. They said an equivalent of cheers, drank the cup and passed it. The next person did the same - they didn´t offer it to me which is okay because I would have said no. I was getting a weird vibe from this crowd which was verified when the drunk guy from the beginning starts ranting. I didn´t understand most of it but I did understand ´´problemas de Amantani´´ and ´tourismo´. No one looked at me but I felt the pressure. Next to me there had been a group of school girls who left one by one to go upstairs. I waited a little and made my own exit up the stairs. The top deck was a different atmosphere - the girls were asking questions about island life of the men and they were answering happily. Seems I didn´t get the memo that the downstairs cabin is for angry drunks but I felt much more comfortable upstairs - I even struggled through a conversation in spanish with the guy next to me.
A little bit later one guy
leaned in, said something that everyone lauged at and put one sole (the currency) on the floor. Next most of the other people did and he motioned to me but I didn´t understand why. he said it was okay and picked up the money to go downstairs. He returned with a 2L bottle of cocacola and one plastic cup. He gave the remaining money to a guy who opened one of the large shipping containers and took out a bunch of bread - at this point I understood and gave in my S/1. Thus began the PG-13 version of the ritual I witnessed downstairs only this time the conversation was light and happy and I participated.
The captain came around to collect money and everyone´s information on a sheet of paper, he asked me if I have aplace to stay. I said I wanted to stay only one day and he said this is not possible. I said ok, and he offered me his family´s home to stay in. I got a weird vibe from him and decided to try to evade him on landing and avoid it. Once we landed, I got off quickly and walked to shore
and popped into a store to buy water. I turned around and he was there - he said do you want to come with to my family´s house to stay (all in spanish by the way) and I struggled withhow to be evasive in spanish then said ´No´, he looked surprised but said ok, bye.
I wandered up the main path and found the main square which was surprisingly empty. I sat down for a minute to adjust the stuff in my bag and an islander couple came up to me
and asked if I was waiting for a family to stay with. I said no, and he asked if I wanted to stay with him family. Don´t ask me why i felt better about this but instincts are instincts and I said yes, I´d come to look at it. We walked a short way and he led me into his house - a cute collection of mud buildings around a central outdoor area (like almost all of these homes), with a family-sized farm of a few crops in back. He led me a set of very rickety wooden stairs and across a wooden balcony ala-the-lost-boys or the-childhood-treehouse-i-never-had
and through a tiny little door into my room. It was cute and he seemed really nice, as did his family and I said ok. It helps that the price was right - S/20 (7 or 8 dollars) for the night and home cooked lunch and dinner. He said lunch would be soon so I should wait and that if I wanted to see the temple ruins with a guide, I could wait until 4p when there would be an english tour. I said ´how much does it cost?´and he gave a string of sentences that I understood to mean 'its part of a guided tour but you can just join up and he won´t notice becuase you are all the same color´. You might think I translated wrong but that is exactly what happened. First I had a delicious lunch, wandered by myself along the beach to discover the not-so-well-hidden Amantani garbage dump' and found my way back to my host house in time to join the tour. It was a group of english speakers and a peruvian guide. I got a few funny looks but no one said anything and soon enough i struck up a conversation with
The path to the temple of Father Earth
Unforunately I didn´t get to see the temple of Mother Earth, the sun had set and it got freezing. Actually I didn´t get to either one because the temples themselves are closed off all year except for one day in January for a big festival. But surrounding the temple is really pretty with great sunset views. someone and learned that this was a group of volunteers from Cuzco on a sidetrip. The guide was not so great and we wandered our way up to the temple and I ducked out to see it on my own. By 'on my own' I mean 'with hoards of tourists'. I hadn´t realized but the temple of Father Earth is THE spot on the island for a good sunset. Which is great because I got to see a beautiful sunset but unfortunate because the crowds of tourist made the sun want to set even quicker to escape the storm of ´how long did the inca trail to macchu picchu take you´ and ´have you tried cuy yet?' (cuy - guinnea pig is a traditional peruvian dish. if this makes you cringe, at least consider that peruvians have been eating cuy much longer than we americans have been putting them in a cage to coo at).
I wandered down as the sun continued to set and enjoyed the silence, passing one woman at the bottom, i said 'I bet the sunset was just as good down here' she said 'yeah and without the crowds'. I said 'there should be an
international rule of sunsets: no talking´. She agreed and I continued on my way to my host house. Dinner was great and after an hour of writing by candle light, I jumped into bed to escape the freezing cold.
13/6
My host family father (Geraldo, pernounced Heraldo) had said he would knock on my door to wake me so i could catch a 5:30 lancha (small motor boat) to the mainland. I set my alarm because i didn´t want to make the same mistake twice and alas, I woke from an alarm and left without even hearing anything from my family. i felt bad that I didnt get to say goodbye, but i had paid and said a proper thank you to my host mama the night before.
I trotted and shivered down the port in the dark and asked a woman where the lancha was, she led me in the dark to a small boat with two men looking intensely at the motor of their boat. i didnt think twice, got in and took out my flashlight to help them. After some false starts and jimmy-rigging, we were on our way. Luckily they had an extra thick
blanket for me to wrap around me because it was absolutely freezing. We got a great few of the sunrise as we sped away from it towards the mainland. An hour or so later, we landed nearby to waiting colectivos where a few people sat huddled in the cold waiting for the bus to fill. Thank the good lord, a little woman sat near the colectivos selling some watery hot coco and bread, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Once another boat from an island came, we filled up (and I mean - FILLED up) and were on our way to Puno.
The rest is history... I mean, the rest is today. Shower, food, internet and rolling blackouts all over the city and here I am.
Wow, to all those who made it this far, i congratulate you. If you are anyone other than my mom or girlfriend then I´m really surprised.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.18s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 12; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0932s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jim
non-member comment
Island visit
Found your visit interesting. I will be visiting the area next March 2011 and your long blog report provides me much needed details on what to expect if I go without booking thru an official agency tour.