Full moon over Lake Titicaca
I´ve just returned from a two-day tour of some of the islands on Lake Titicaca. Before I go any further, titi is the Quechua word for puma and caca means gray - therefore, Lake Titicaca is the gray puma and you can all stop tittering now.
It was lovely to leave Puno and spend hours in the middle of this huge lake which is shared by Peru and Bolivia. In fact, a number of the people in my group were continuing on to Copacobana Bolivia and I´ve not been able to get that song out of my head since yesterday morning.
We first went to two of the Uros floating islands which are made entirely of reeds from the lake. The island itself is pile upon pile of reed and those same plants are used to make their houses and boats. We next went to Amantani where we hiked around quite a bit (my entire Peruvian tour can be summed up by: 'I´m supposed to climb WHERE?´) and then spent the night with a local family. I lucked out and was assigned to the same family as a woman from Lima who was able to
communicate with the family much better than I. The family speaks Quechua and a little Spanish, Carmen speaks Spanish and a little English, and I speak a little tiny bit of Spanish, so we had some interesting conversations.
The altitude of the lake and Amantani are so high that the moon is roughly three feet above the ground. It was absolutely breathtaking to watch the moonrise, plus there was an eclipse last night that I felt I had a front row seat for. There is no electricity on the island (also no running water, toilets, etc), so nothing impeded our view of the amazing night sky.
On our way back to Puno today we stopped by Taquile, another island involving quite a hike. We had to climb up and down 580 steps to reach the main plaza from our boat. The people on Taquile still wear traditional dress which includes distinctive costumes to denote your marital status. Married men have a hat of a single color while single men have a two-color hat; married women wear dark skirts while single women wear brightly colored skirts (unless they´re in mourning). Our
guide had a great time pointing out all of the single people on the island to us, and my Limeña friend, recently spurned by a German boyfriend, had to get her picture taken with one of the unattached men on the island.
By the by, I tried a Pisco sour a few nights ago; it´s a cocktail containing brandy made in Pisco Peru, egg white, soda water and ...? It tasted fine but one drink was a little bit more than I could
handle. Luckily I was at dinner with a group of people I´d met on my tour to Sillustani and three of them were staying at my same hostel, so I knew I ´d get home safely (and had taken that into consideration when ordering my drink). I´ll be happy to stick with my vino blanco from now on. Other things I´ve now tried include ceviche (good, but the trout tasted like it hadn´t been cleaned), alpaca (cook anything with enough garlic and it´s bound to taste good), tumbo (a mucous-y
fruit picked from the Amantani family´s yard), fried homemade cheese, quinoa soup, and lately lots of saltines. I got a bit dehydrated a couple of days ago and have been nauseous at the thought of most food; I´m going to give my stomach a break for a bit.
It was lovely to leave Puno and spend hours in the middle of this huge lake which is shared by Peru and Bolivia. In fact, a number of the people in my group were continuing on to Copacobana Bolivia and I´ve not been able to get that song out of my head since yesterday morning.
We first went to two of the Uros floating islands which are made entirely of reeds from the lake. The island itself is pile upon pile of reed and those same plants are used to make their houses and boats. We next went to Amantani where we hiked around quite a bit (my entire Peruvian tour can be summed up by: 'I´m supposed to climb WHERE?´) and then spent the night with a local family. I lucked out and was assigned to the same family as a woman from Lima who was able to
communicate with the family much better than I. The family speaks Quechua and a little Spanish, Carmen speaks Spanish and a little English, and I speak a little tiny bit of Spanish, so we had some interesting conversations.
The altitude of the lake and Amantani are so high that the moon is roughly three feet above the ground. It was absolutely breathtaking to watch the moonrise, plus there was an eclipse last night that I felt I had a front row seat for. There is no electricity on the island (also no running water, toilets, etc), so nothing impeded our view of the amazing night sky.
On our way back to Puno today we stopped by Taquile, another island involving quite a hike. We had to climb up and down 580 steps to reach the main plaza from our boat. The people on Taquile still wear traditional dress which includes distinctive costumes to denote your marital status. Married men have a hat of a single color while single men have a two-color hat; married women wear dark skirts while single women wear brightly colored skirts (unless they´re in mourning). Our
guide had a great time pointing out all of the single people on the island to us, and my Limeña friend, recently spurned by a German boyfriend, had to get her picture taken with one of the unattached men on the island.
By the by, I tried a Pisco sour a few nights ago; it´s a cocktail containing brandy made in Pisco Peru, egg white, soda water and ...? It tasted fine but one drink was a little bit more than I could
handle. Luckily I was at dinner with a group of people I´d met on my tour to Sillustani and three of them were staying at my same hostel, so I knew I ´d get home safely (and had taken that into consideration when ordering my drink). I´ll be happy to stick with my vino blanco from now on. Other things I´ve now tried include ceviche (good, but the trout tasted like it hadn´t been cleaned), alpaca (cook anything with enough garlic and it´s bound to taste good), tumbo (a mucous-y
fruit picked from the Amantani family´s yard), fried homemade cheese, quinoa soup, and lately lots of saltines. I got a bit dehydrated a couple of days ago and have been nauseous at the thought of most food; I´m going to give my stomach a break for a bit.
posted by Imle at 11:06 AM
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