Titipoopoo!

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We arrive late in Puno at our plush hotel, grab a quick bite to eat then hit our heads on the pillows before our boat trip on lake Titicaca the next day. Marnie my roomie has a grandson who thinks Lake Titicaca is hilarious and renamed it Lake Titi poo poo hence the title of this post!

In the night I suffer a bout of very painful stomach cramps and back ache - if I didn´t know better I´d have said I was having contractions it was so bad! All passes by and I get a few hours sleep and think this is the end of it as I´m right as rain the next morning - apart from the continuing diddley squits! So we all set off on rickshaws to the harbour and board our boat for the 3 hour trip to the islands where we will be staying over night with a local family. On the way our guide Ruben tells us all about the stats of the lake from it being the highest navigable lake in the world to it lying partly in Peru and partly in Bolivia. Boliva used to have access to the sea until Chile took over this part. Despite now being a land locked country as a result Bolivia still has a Navy but just on Lake Titicaca! There are many islands on the Lake, some proper lakes and some man made floating islands housing just a few familes. One of the islands, Sun Island (i think) used to be an Incan pilgrimage site as it was thought to be the place the first Incan was born. Who they were born to I don´t quite understand!! So the lake is about 165km x 60km and at its deepest is 280m. There are 20 rivers flowing into it in the rainy season (only 5 in the dry season) and always only one flowing out. This creates a 1m difference in water levels during the year and year on year due to evaporation and not enough water flowing in the lake´s level is reducing by 1cm!

This is where my attention levels ceased as I was overcome by the same stomach cramps and excrutiating back pain that I´d suffered in the night. This went on for 2 and half hours for the rest of the boat journey and I thought I was going to die it was so awful. Fortunately it subsided about 10 minutes before we reached the island and I managed to enjoy a couple of hours on shore. After being made to drink some mint tea (as if this was going to do any good!) we set off up the hillside to the main square of the island (called something like Tequilay). Here there were loads of islanders dressed in colourful traditional costumes with the colours and other things indicating what island they came from, whether they were married or available etc. To stop tourists being pestered too much and to prevent arguments between islanders they have set up a shop in the square where all the goods they have made are sold at set prices and the family has a number attached to each item they have made so they divy out the money to the correct families at the end of the day. I've noticed that there is generally a lot less hassling of tourists to buy than many other countries I've been to including other South American countries. In other words they don't come up to you to try and get you into their shop and actually walk off if you say no thanks. It therefore means you are happier to wander into shops and browse and actually buy more. The Peruvians have cottoned onto this and are so much savier about western tourists than in other places.

All the women we see walking around the island are spinning threads on hand spinners. The men sit knitting on tiny needles making very tight knit patterned hats and head bands. We find out later that the island tradition is for boys to learn knitting from their fathers and girls to learn weaving from their mothers. These skills are tested before marriage by the potential in laws of each side. Peruvians, despite the Catholic religion brought by the invading Spaniards, practise trial marriages that can last as long as 15 years, including having children together. Usually these trials end in marriage eventually. It seems to be a common theme of mixing Catholicism with traditional beliefs, both therefore getting diluted, the best of both worlds, how convenient! No more slaughtering and sacrificial offerings BUT wey hey you get to live with your lover without having to get married! You see, Peruvians, pretty savy lol!!

We sat down to lunch made by the islanders on a lovely terrace overlooking the island from the highest point. They produced some really lovely food, far better than most of the restaurants we'd been to so far. Unfortunately after lunch my excruciating stomach and back pains returned with avengence and all I could think about was getting back to Puno as soon as possible to see a doctor. It was pretty scary being in so much pain, not knowing what was wrong and how serious it was and being so isolated from any medical help. Unfortunately Max had let the time slip by and the last boat to Puno had already left!! I think he thought just because the pain had gone at lunch time I would want to carry on with the overnight island stay! ER! No!! Fortunately my lovely new friends in my group decided to all go back to Puno and forego the island stay so I could get some medical attention. I was so relieved and grateful. I just had to endure an agonising couple of hours of hell on the boat before it subsided again. We eventually got back in the dark to Puno where a doctor was waiting at our hotel. After a very thorough examination by the cute young doctor who fortunately could speak a bit of English I was given a pain killing injection in my hip and loads of antibiotics etc to clear up the viral infection I had picked up! What a relief to be rid of the pain and see an end to the squits that had been plaguing me for days.

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