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Published: March 11th 2007
Heading down to the boat
How fun, our drivers raced all the way to the wharf! Well what a way to spend a birthday a 28th at that! Before going to Amantani Island where we stayed the night with a family we visited other islands. The first stop after a very, very slow ferry trip was Taquile Island. On board the boat on the way our guide Perry taught us some more Quechuan to use on the island. Taquile Island is famous for textiles. We marched ourselves up the hill with amazing views over the lake to a cosy little place where we were given a demonstration of textiles being made by the women and items being knitted by the men. They use all natural dyes and everything is handmade. Boys start knitting from a very young age and girls marry very young. There are different types of beanies for people who are married. who are officials and those who are single.
The people were friendly but shy and we were able to take photographs of them doing their work which was really cool. Our guide was very enthusiastic and told us all about the running of the island. It seems that the island is basically a law unto itself. They have great rules like
Taquile Island
A family working on their crafts don´t be lazy and respect other people. It seems to work and everyone is happy according to Perry.
After our talk we made our way, very slowly up the hill to the town plaza where we had a short amount of time to explore. We were lucky enough to see the people leaving the church and the officials of the town then stood up on a balcony and gave a speech, it was all very interesting despite the fact that our Quechuan wasn´t advanced enough to understand it.
Next stop was one of the best lunches we have had to date. Kingfish with rice and of course papas fritas. I was not feeling the best that day due to seasickness and migraines and altitiude but the food was divine according to everyone and the fish I ate tasted good. The explosive tea however was disgusting to me but everyone else liked it. It was a mixture of coca leaves and mint.
Finally we made our way back to the boat (yuk) and headed for Amantani Island where we were to meet our families. It was really strange we were like homeless babies waiting for someone to look
Taquile Island
The officials giving their weekly speech after us. As we got to the top of the hill all of the mums from the different families were waiting for us. We stood in a line and were given over to our mothers who we then followed up a hill to their house.
Our family was Blanca and there were four members in the family:Uetelio (dad), Momoni (mum), Ana (daughter), Edwin (son). We were given a hat to wear so that the families could identifiy us in the crowd. Ana was really nice she had a lamb and was trying to speak English with us because she was learning it in Puno. We did so much in a short amount of time it is hard to recount it all.
Ben played soccer with the locals, the locals won. We had a beautiful dinner of fish and rice with tea and corn. We tested our spanish speaking with the family and then the highlight of the night the party. Thanks to Helen and James having magic Neurofen to help with my headache I made it to the dance party. We got all dressed up in local clothes and danced the night away. Ana even got the panpipe
band to play happy birthday for me. It was loads and loads of fun, but also exhausting as their dancing involves you running around in circles and jumping up and down constantly which isn´t easy at altitude.
We slept well that night and woke the next morning to pancakes.
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Sue Finlayson
non-member comment
Happy Birthday
That sounds like the best Birthday- Loved the outfits Best Wises and travel safe Sue FiniXX