Blog Post #12 Lake Titicaca—Homestay on Amantani Island

Following our visit to the Uros people living on the floating islands, we made our way to Amantani Island, one of rock and harsh living conditions. The island is named from Kantuta, the country’s national flower, which grows in abundance there.   

Victoria and Florentino

Victoria and her three guests. Yes, we're all standing on the same flat surface.

Several of the locals, who were waiting to take us back to their family homes, greeted us at the dock. A couple from Holland and I were paired off with our host and “mama” for the next 24 hours, Victoria, 73. Following Victoria (who could not be more than 4’ 6”) who bounded up the steep slope without effort, I huffed and puffed my way up in the 12,500 feet altitude to the family home. Victoria introduced us to her husband, Florentino, 78, who showed us to our rooms for the night.

Bedroom area

The house is really a little compound. The bedrooms are set off to one side in a U shaped design, up on the second floor where bougainvillea hung from the wrap-around balcony. My room was primitive, with no heat, but plenty of blankets kept me warm that night. The kitchen and dining room are housed in a second building about 25 feet away from the bedroom building, and in between is the bathroom building. That consists of a porcelain toilet and sink, but no running water. To flush, I used a bucket of water from the spigot just outside the toilet room.

Kitchen and dining room

Florentino served us a lunch of Victoria’s homemade quinoa soup to which she’d added potatoes and other vegetables they had grown. All the inhabitants of this island are vegetarians. They raise sheep and alpacas, the only four legged animals on the island, for their wool only. They are expert weavers. I’m told they do slaughter and eat the meat from animals a few times a year on festival occasions. Mostly, they work the terraced hillsides by hand, growing crops such as wheat, quinoa, potatoes, and other vegetables.  

Locals are constantly spinning or knitting, even while they are walking.

There are no roads, motor vehicles, wifi, or other such things. Electricity is minimal. The few hundred indigenous families all speak the Quecha language, which rendered even my rudimentary Spanish meaningless. The island has two mountain peaks, Pachatata (father earth) and Pachamama (mother earth), with ancient Inca and Tiwanaku ruins on top of both. Several of our larger group climbed to the top of Pachatata, but, having some problems with the altitude, I chose to stay behind in the village square.

That night the locals held a dance party for us. They dressed us up in local costumes and taught the local steps.  My altitude sickness symptoms kept me away from the celebration, but after a good and long sleep that night I was in much better shape the next morning.

After breakfast of a type of pancakes, we said our goodbyes and took a boat ride to Taquile Island, another place populated with yet another group of indigenous people, the Taquilenos, who also speak Quechua. They produce fine handwoven textiles and clothing which are regarded as among the highest quality handicrafts in the country. The culture calls for only men, beginning at age 8, to do all the knitting, while the women do the dying and spinning of the wool into yarn.

His sash says he's married. Note the coca pouch hanging on his right side. 

Perhaps most interesting are the colorful clothes they wear. To the point of obsession to the sensibilities to this westerner, marital status is all important and is openly reflected in the outfits they wear. The belt sash worn by every person, young and old, male and female, denotes marital status or availability for marital status. Custom dictates that availability begins at age 18. Everyone is expected to get married and once they are, there is no such thing as divorce. Courtship is usually 18-24 months long and once married there is a trial period during which one or the other can walk away from the relationship if things are not working out. Otherwise, the marriage lasts a lifetime.

Both men and women chew coca leaves (as did I) much like people might chew tobacco. The juice produced is swallowed for medicinal purposes—the active ingredients help in adjusting to high altitudes. Part of the male costume includes a waist-side pouch filled with coca leaves. They do not shake hands with one another. Instead they each take some coca leaves from their pouches and exchange them with one another.       

Blog Post #11 Lake Titicaca—Floating Island

At an elevation of 12,507 feet, Lake Titicaca boasts being the highest navigable waterway in the world. It’s also the largest lake in all of South America. I booked a two-day, one-night tour on the lake.

From a passenger boat made for 20 or so passengers, we made our way to our first stop, one of the 42 “floating” islands on the lake. The Uros people, their total numbers of about 2,000 with only a few hundred living on the islands, have the most unusual way of living I’ve ever seen.

House on island with solar panel

The area of the lake just off the shores of Puno is home to vast beds of totora reeds growing in its shallow waters. Four or five families will find an area of especially shallow water and with a saw, cut several two-foot cube root masses, trim the reeds away, and replant them, side by side, in an even shallower area. Those root mass cubes are then tied together in multiple plots, anchored to the lake bed with ropes, then forming the base of an island large enough for the families to call home.

The floor of the island with our guide and native Oros woman

As they are building this foundation, the workers will simultaneously lay down shocks of the nine foot reeds aligned in one direction, followed by shocks in the opposing, perpendicular direction. That process is repeated until, after continuous work for about a year, they have created their island, “floating” about two feet above the water’s surface. The reeds rot over time and the islanders are constantly having to add more and more layers to maintain a dry and safe island floor.

Interior of family home. Notice the reed mattress for the bed

                                                            House's mechanical system

Next they will harvest more reeds which they use build their houses and other structures, such as a toilet (located on its own separate island) and a lookout platform.

Morning's catch laid out to dry

When Alberto Fujimori was president he visited the islands, and became impressed with the way of living of the Uros people and later provided multiple solar panels, light bulbs, wire, receptacles, and conduit so that every family has a home outfitted with enough electricity to provide electric light and run radios and televisions.

Cooking is done outside over a ceramic stove with a contained fire inside. To guard against the fire breaking out on the reed floor, the stove is place on a slab of slate. Elementary, middle and high school education is provided a boat ride away on a neighboring island.

Uros woman displaying her weavings for sale. 

The reed is the backbone of their existence, providing construction material for the island, all structures, boats, and as a food staple. The bottom 8-10 inches of the reed is white, and when an outer layer is peeled away, what remains is the edible inside “banana” portion. These island people are fishermen and the fish they catch are added to the bananas to make up the bulk of their diet.

One of several boats built and owned by one of the villager families

And, they are boat builders extraordinaire. They use the reeds to fashion wide bottom catamaran type vessels with dramatic upward curves in both the bows and sterns. I sat on a platform built in the center and reached by a ladder when we were given a ride. The boat is propelled by oars and because of its low draft, seemingly little energy is needed by the two oarsmen/women to move the boat in whatever way they needed.

An island home to 4-5 families

To me it is a strange and bizarre way of life. To them it was just the way things are. With primitive means of existence, little in the way of space to roam, and entertainment virtually nonexistent I know I could not survive there. Yet, it is just one of the countless ways we as humans adapt, survive, and thrive. 

Blog Post #10 Machu Picchu

The Incas built the working sanctuary around 1450 but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. (Some believe that ‘abandonment’ came about from widespread death through small pox carried by the Spaniards.) Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911. Legend has it the Incas, wishing to keep the sanctuary hidden from the conquistadors, deliberately destroyed the trail leading from the Sacred Valley to the site. 

Viefrom train on the way to Machu Picchu image

According to the stories told by my guides and with enhanced details from Wikipedia, I learned Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca sanctuary/city situated on a mountain ridge 7,970 feet above sea level. It is located near the Sacred Valley, 50 miles northwest of Cusco. Its name means mountain with a broad base that ends in sharp, or “old” peaks. Most believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate, or a “Camp David”, for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472).

From the top

It’s possible to trek for four days along the original Inca trail to Machu Pichhu and that’s what I originally had planned back in January. Regretfully, that trek requires the purchase of a ticket from a pool of first-come-first-served applicants and the trek is booked as much as a year in advance. I took the train. It was a lovely, soul satisfying trip along the Urabamba River as it wound its way downstream in a froth of roiling whitewater.

Up the farming terraces, ancient stone structures with new thatched roofs

It had been my plan when I arrived late morning in Agua Calliente*, the tiny village at the base of Machu Picchu, to spend the day in town and go up to the sanctuary on the next day. I was literally too excited for that. So, I bought my ticket and hopped on the bus for the ascent.

Steps carved from  existing stone

The trail at the top just beyond the entrance presented two options, one down and the other up to the Inka Bridge. To get out of the crush of people going down, I chose up to the Inca Bridge and was not disappointed. Taking the final steps from multiple switchbacks on the side of a mountain, I came to that iconic vantage place I’d seen a thousand times displaying the entire village down below and before me. I let out “God” in an unintended, audible reflexive gasp. No other word comes close to what I saw, and no other word is adequate. It’s that majestic, magical, mystical, and reverent.

Vista from Machu Picchu

A nearby woman heard my one word, smiled, and nodded agreement. I stood there for several minutes trying my best to understand what I was seeing, and combining that with just doing nothing, paying my respects to the wonder of it all.     

View up from farming terraces

For several hours I slowly and in silence walked the grounds of this sanctuary and with occasional delicate touch, ran my fingers across the stones here and there. I tried to pull from my imagination the civilization that conceived of this and then brought it to life. To imagine this paradise before it was carved out of a mountain ridge, then to plan in laying it out, to apply the inconceivable math, engineering, and agricultural skills, and of course to then actually perform all the hard work with only bronze tools to make it a reality—all that is evident everywhere I looked, along with what I imagined as a pastoral life of those who lived here. Divine Inspiration is a phrase that came to mind time after time.

*(Agua Calliente literally means “Hot Water”, and indeed hot springs are there. The town is also known as Machu Picchu Pueblo.)