Floating Islands

Day 11

We all survived our evening at the homestay.  Again, breakfast was a crazy amount of food.  They just kept bringing out more and more plates of food!

Sheep on the way up

Our morning entertainment was a hike up to the top peak of the island, Pachamama.  This felt like one of the hardest hikes.  Much of the trail felt like you were walking straight up the hill as you climbed even higher in elevation.  We would have to move for shepards with their sheep along the trails or the men hauling loads on their backs.  There are no vehicles on the island so it's mostly manual labour as I saw more people carrying loads than animals!  There was a temple at the top of the hill that is closed aside from the winter solstice as well as some truly lovely views of Bolivia from across the lake.  It was a tough hike but worth making it to the top.

Views of Bolivia and the lake

This was the real moment of cultural relativism on the trip.  It's hard to see how people live so differently, yet similar, and not have some sort of comparison.  You don't notice the differences as much as you wander local malls and see the Gap, or Chili's.  I suppose the islanders are similar to the Hutterites or the Amish at home.  Staying in the home you do get a closer look.  You see the women in the kitchen doing most of the work while the men would eat dinner with us and make conversation.  It was a return to a traditional way of farm life that I am okay with visiting but I appreciate the technology that makes my life easier.  I have no interest in having to be the dishwasher!!

Terry and I with our necklaces

After lunch, where we had another bottomless bowl of soup with salsa and buns and fried cheese.  Strange but good.  We were all given necklaces of the cantuta flowers, the national flower of Peru.  It was kind of like getting the lei in Hawaii.  Except you were supposed to pull the flowers off and throw them into Lake Titicaca and make a wish for each flower.  Great idea for me to not have to drag the flowers with me for the rest of the trip as I am apt to do.  My Hawaiian leis always live in a fridge until the end when I begrudginly throw them away.  And we had a 3 hour boat ride to Puno so lots of time for that.

Along the way we stopped to visit the floating islands of the Uros.  So the concept here is that indigenous people have figured out how to build islands on their own so that they can avoid paying taxes.  There are about 85 I believe they told us.  And most have no desire to have tourists visit.  But there are a few.  We got a demonstration of how they build the islands.

show about the island

It's peat (I think, it was so hot I was concerned my brain was getting cooked a bit) with layers and layers of reeds over top.  They are dedicated as they have to add more reeds every 2 weeks to maintain the island.  We even had a little show with props made from reeds.  Props of the buildings, the boats, and even the family that lived there!

It was a smaller family living here.  A husband and wife and their daughter.  As well as his mother and an older single lady.  The strangest part of the island visit was that they do everything with the reeds.  They build the island obviously.  Built the buildings, furniture and boats.  And they eat it!  Of course we can't drink the water so we shouldn't eat the reeds but the husband did.  He must have eaten 3 or 4 while we were there.  And he would chew on it with this little smile as if to say 'I can eat this and you can't'.  Bizarre.

Sorry Mom, I couldn't resist

The reeds were tricky to walk on.  You really have to lift your legs to not fall and brace yourself.  They did let us check out the houses and they were pretty basic.  And for some reason Mom was the only one forced into an outfit.  She looked like Boy George and it was too funny to see her wandering around dressed up.  Welcome to Peru!

The finale was the chance for a boat ride from one island to another.  And they made our guide for the island help row us.  He seemed a little surprised he was chosen.  And as we were leaving the ladies sang us a lovely little song.  They did it in English, Quechua and Spanish.  It wasn't until we heard the English version that we realized it was row, row, row your boat.  Good sense of humor.

The reed boat

Then off to Puno for the evening.  We didn't get much of a chance to see anything as we went for a group dinner and then it was dark and we were off the next morning.  I did see the city square and it looked like every other one in Peru so far.

And as we left our guide behind (he stayed with us for the whole island visit), he let us know that he is single and looking!  And hoped we would give him a good review online.  Only I never seem to catch any of the tour guides names!  He was entertaining, it was just a strange ending to a strange couple days on the island.

One of the houses on the island