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Puno
The Cathedral It felt like a long 5 hour journey by bus to Puno from Arequipa. I’d woken up feeling a little under the weather and sitting on a bus wasn’t making me feel any better. Puno unfortunately is pretty high up in the mountains and at 3860m (just over 12,500 ft), I just felt worse when I arrived in the afternoon. Walking up 2 flights of stairs to my room left me breathless. I knew it was the altitude and taking it easy until I got used to it was the only answer.
I ventured out for a brief walk and something to eat. I wasn’t really fond of Puno as a town. It’s a purely functional town on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigatable lake in the world. Tourism and fishing are the main industry here. There are some touristy shops and restaurants along one main street but away from that it’s still very provincial, bare brick buildings that always look unfinished and not very sound. The older local women here also still wear the traditional clothing alongside the jean clad youngsters. Here the skirts are a little shorter by an inch or two, still gathered but in
Puno
Bowler hats are the fashion. lush velvets with less or no embellishment at the hem. Often they’ll have a blanket pinned around the shoulders, their long hair is always done in two plaited pigtails down their back and the head wear of choice is a bowler hat. The hats come in brown or black and always look too small for the wearer as they sit perched on the head at a jaunty angle. Not the most flattering of headwear in my eyes but they seem to like it.
The bus arrived to pick me up for my tour to the Lake the next morning. The little boat held about 20 of us inside a cabin and it chugged slowly out over the lake. It was a beautiful sunny day with a little chill in the air. Soon after we’d left the harbour bay the boat reached what looked like fields of reeds swaying in the water. This is what we’d come to see, the famous floating islands in Lake Titicaca. I’ve seen ‘floating islands’ in Vietnam and was all prepared to be nonplussed by it all. I hadn’t seen any pictures so I assumed it would be the same old houses on stilts I’d
seen before. I was wrong and utterly captivated by these true floating villages.
During Inca times the local people all over the Inca Empire worked for the Incas. The story goes that here the Uros people didn’t like working for the Incas so the Incas gave them their freedom but on the condition they didn’t live on the main land. The only option left to them was the water and initially they built reed boats to live on, expanding to reed islands later. They rope the root balls of the reeds together then lay layer after layer of foot long (or longer) pieces of reed on top until they make an island. The 2/3 meters of reeds are buoyant enough to house small villages of 9-10 houses (made from reed of course). They use the reed for almost everything, including a quick snack. The local people here rely mostly on tourism but it’s never crowded as all the tourist boats visit a different island.
The people greeted us with smiles and waves as we disembarked. My feet sank slightly into the reed bed as I walked over to the seating area, a very odd feeling indeed. The guide
Floating Islands
The pet cat looking a little wet. gave us brief history and a demonstration of how the islands were made. He even opened up a small hole and demonstrated that the water here was 18 meters deep. The local women then gave us a tour of the houses. They dressed similarly to those in Puno but had the addition of huge pom poms on the end of their plaits. They use solar power here to avoid the risk of fire and have small fish farms to supplement their income. We then had a short boat ride on a reed boat over to another island and to pick up the main boat again. The women waved us off with songs at the waterside; local songs and ‘Bring back my Bonnie to me” in English for some strange reason.
After another 2 hours on the boat we were in the middle of the lake approaching Taquile Island. Lunch was to be served here, but it was at the top of the hill. Even though I always put my hand up and admit how unfit I am it was incredible how out of breath I was climbing the hill. It seemed to take me ages (as it did other
Floating Islands
Local dress with pom poms in the hair, people) to walk the short distance up to the main square. I had to stop several times to catch my breath before continuing. I didn’t feel unwell at all but even taking it slowly I could feel walking was more of an effort than it normally would be.
The people here on Taquile have a hat system (traditional Peruvians seem to love hats). The men wear a white and red embroidered hat (that looks similar to a night cap) if he’s single, a fully embroidered one of married and a wooly bobble hat with pigtails if he’s a village official. The women wear more of a large black square scarf over the head than a hat. It has large colourful pom poms at each corner and they hold the front corners out to shield their faces from the sun. I love the national dress in Peru. It’s slightly different in each area and it was lovely to see the locals still wearing it. I’m sure in a few years it’ll only be worn for the tourists but today, as in the Colca Valley, the people largely wore it as the norm.
Lunch wasn’t at a restaurant but at
Floating Islands
Testing the depths - 17m to the lake bed. a house. They served delicious quinoa soup followed by trout from the lake as we sat on benches outside. After lunch we made our way back down the other side of the Island, down 500+ steps back to the boat.
The boat left harbour and chugged back to Puno. I think every other boat passed us on the way but it was a beautiful day, the water was calm and there was no hurry. After 2 and a half hours though we realised something was wrong as the captain fiddled with the engine and diesel fumes filled the air. The engine was on its last legs and they decided to limp back to port. However the engine died within sight of Puno. We could see harbour but were stranded in the lake as the sun set. The crew fiddled away and after about half an hour the boat sprang back to life. They headed for the nearest pier rather than port but just as we approached the engine gave out again. We were almost within touching distance and the boat thankfully drifted in the right direction and we made it to the pier. Our guide thanked us for coming
Floating Islands
Nibbling on reeds. and hoped we’d enjoyed our Lake Titicaca adventure.
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