Homestay Excitement

Day 10

Today we head further south to Lake Titicaca.  We'll be climbing up to our highest elevation in the coming days.  Here's hoping we've started to adjust!

Big Church

The novelty tonight is we are staying in a homestay on Amantani Island.  The villagers get a chance for some extra income and we get a chance to see how they live.  We do come here and stay in the posh suburbs, the gated communities and think we have an idea of how things work.  Not that staying in the homes is really going to give us an idea of how they live, but it's a new perspective.  Everyone seems a little anxious of what to expect but I'm sure it'll end up good.

On the way to the boat we had a few stops, one at another Incan site -the entire country is littered with them.  The draw of this one was the huge church that remains as well at the out buildings.  The church could hold 1600 people I believe.  Just the supports were left.  As well as giant piles of stones to be rebuilt.  The surreal part of this place is that we arrived to an empty site.  Very few people milling about.  And when we left there were dozens of people selling things, massive lineups for the toilets, and tourists everywhere!

Getting up there in altitude, don't worry, we got even higher

Today was a lot of driving south to the lake.  We had to get there earlier to avoid the rough waters.  But being up in the highlands means there isn't too much up here.  Haven't spotted any flamingos yet.  But they might be in the area.

We drove through a town called Juliaca.  Diana warned us for the last few days how ugly it is.  We figured she was exaggerating but she wasn't.  It's incredibly dusty and dirty.  They have a big black market that they do not hide.  They sell cheap gas from Bolivia on the street corners.  The city just gave a vibe of having completely given up.  So I guess she was right on this count, it was a sad place to drive through.

We made it in time for our boat ride out to Amantani Island.  Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at over 3800 m high.  The lake is huge and split between Peru and Bolivia.  It's also a very cold lake, around 9c, but we didn't get close enough to touch.

The homestay was an unusual experience.  We had such little info so we were all a little anxious.  And googling it didn't help.  Many reviews spoke of some sort of dance.  The island is basically all uphill.  Everywhere.  So being up this high in elevation and having to haul our stuff around was tough.  Bless their hearts of the islanders carrying our stuff up!  We all went up to the town square and got divided into our house.  We were in groups of 2 or 3 so we all had some different experiences.  The people mostly speak Quechua with a tiny bit of Spanish and English.  We lucked out and had the tour guide stay with us so he could keep the conversation going.  And I used another small bit of Spanish, it frustrates me a bit that I travel so much yet have no functional language other than English!  The people were excited to have us there and treated us very well.

Cindy and the potatoes we were about to peel

We got the house tour, including the toilet you flushed by dumping buckets of water in.  No showers, which was what everyone wanted upon arrival at the next hotel.  After the tour the idea was to help out with some household chores before dinner.  Everyone had different tasks, we got to cut up potatoes.  Lots of tiny little potatoes.  Some people played with the kids, some people hauled water, some people cut up carrots or even did some gardening.  We stayed with Daniel and Agostina and their 5 kids, as well as a few in laws.  There was a lot of people coming and going.  And I guess they had a second house as well.  The father spoke an impressive amount of English.  And we were in a house with no guinea pigs.  I guess a few people had some pens in the house which came as a suprise to some people!

Sunset over Lake Titicaca

Before dinner they dressed us all up in the traditional clothing they wear.  Which are embroidered shirts and huge skirts.  Then they sent us down to the town square for some drinks.  Which also felt like an opportuntity for some entertainment for the locals as people were outwardly laughing when we came through.  We were quite the group all dressed up like this!  What I find really strange is that the women wear bright white shirts.  How they keep them clean I'm not sure!  But kudos to them.

Mom and I rocking our awesome outfits.  And extra classy
with our other clothes underneath!

We ate so much food.  They mostly eat a vegetarian diet, or at least that is what they served us.  But so much food.  Bottomless bowls of soup, plates of rice and vegetables.  I felt like I was going to burst, but it was really good.  I also miss the bizarre little buns they served.  It was a crispy bun with a big pocket in the middle, almost pita like.  They were good.  And we had them many places.

After dinner it was off to bed, or you could go check out the stars.  It was really dark here so the star gazing was quite incredible.