Today began early again. We headed down from our hotel to the lakeside port via tuk tuk. The poor bugger pedalling me and sim. I gave him a decent tip for that effort.
We got on the boat and headed for the floating reed island community of Uros. Wow, what an amazing place in our world. So captivating and intriguing. We were shown how the islands were created and are maintained. Such clever people. Quite an incredible piece of engineering really.
The whole community is completely self sufficient. They have vegetable gardens, duck and trout farms and even solar power these days. Amazing!
I was invited into the home of one of the local guys, he was a similar age to me, his name was Ricardo. He lived such a simple yet comfortable life. I ended up buying one of the reed moblies he builds to make money, it was really cool. On the islands the men do the weaving of the reeds and the construction of the reed boats, while the women do all the textiles, cooking etc.
Whilst i was chatting with Riccardo, Smone and Laura were in with the local ladies, and then came out dressed in the local garments, very funny! Priceless photo.
We then hopped in a reed boat and took a short paddle around the islands.
I really enjoyed this place. I loved the way they constructed everything, even to the point where they replenish the reeds once a month, and lift the reed/thatched buildings up, to allow for the rise in reed base. Better still, they have designed in the lifting handles to their homes to allow this replenishing of the reeds to take place. Quite an amazing cultural experience.
After buying some really cool souvenirs we headed off to another island, Taquile Island that was 2.5 hours boatride away. To put the size of lake titicaca in perspective, when we got to this island, we were just on the edge of the main part of the lake. It's huge, you feel like you're on the ocean. To see everything this great place has to offer would take days.
Taquile Island was really interesting. It had quite a strong Spanish influence. All the men and boys wore black pants, white shirt and black waistcoats, as well as colorful headwear.
We were told the island had a population of 3500 people, who lived by laws such as you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. There was no police and no crime in this place. Everyone lived together in harmony with each other and the land. This place seemed so far removed from the world we know.
The steep terrain of the island was terraced into different agricultural plots. Crops, cattle, sheep etc dominated the landscape. Even the buildings, constructed of earth blocks, blended in to the landscape. Quite a sight. So interesting to see people truly living off the land and the lake - completely self sustaining.
We ventured into the main part of the village and checked out more textile markets. The island is renowned for it's rich textile traditions.
We then had lunch, and what I would say was the best piece of fish I've had in ages. For 20soles ($8), we had soup and bread, grilled trout, veggies, potato fries and rice. Plus the most beautiful view. Was really quite pleasant.
We were then explained the traditions of all the headwear and garments of the people of the island. Was a really fascinating look into the customs of such s small population of people. Sad part is that the population is declining as more and more young people leave and go to the mainland
It was then our turn to head back to the mainland. The long boatride gave us all a nice length of time for a siesta.
That evening we headed out for dinner with our tour group. The place was nice and had a mixture of local folk dancers in colorful outfits as well as a cool sounding Peruvian band, complete with an array of woodwind instruments, guitars and charigos, small double string guitars. Was quite the spectacle.
Dinner was ok. For starters we got free Pisco Sour on the house. The soup was again nice, different but nice. Had an alpaca stock.
I was also able to try the guinea pig, much to the annoyance of Simone. It's a delicacy of sorts here in Peru. It's not bad, kinda like eating chicken wings but tastes like rabbit I guess.
All in all it was a pretty fun filled day.
- Blog from iMat
No comments:
Post a Comment