7 June PUNO 4000m, Lago Titicaca
Left Cusco as planned by 8am train and arrived in Puno on the lake shore of Titicaca just before dark.
Very interesting journey largely through straw coloured step-lands with a backcloth of high mountains. When it reached the high point of 4350m there was a station stop on which local sellers of food and drink appeared out of the blue. We walked around gingerly wary because this was for us a new height record.
Sat opposite Alexandrov a professional Russian student of around 27 years, he explained that he could earn more from scholarships to study in the west than he could get from working in Russia. Very intelligent and thoughtful he had clear views on Chechnya in more depth than we could understand. He clearly blamed the heavy handed intervention by Yeltsin who wished to stop the break up of Soviet Russia, but sympathised with Putin because the country was now run by bandits.
He compared my kindly face with Georges Soros who had funded one of his scholarships as though hoping I would support him. We left the train in a hurry to find accommodation leaving our guide book behind, on discovering the loss of an essential aid, our view improved after returning to the station to find he had handed it as lost property.
8 June UROS and TAQUILE islands on TITICACA
Titicaca at 4000m is the highest navigable lake in the world and on the lakeshore there was a reassembled British made steamer as if to prove it. To the east and south it borders Bolivia, to the west Peru.
Took a boat onto the huge lake, of North American size which looks like a sea. A boatload of perhaps 25 from Inka Tours, four hours out via Uros and three hours back from Taquile.
Uros is a floating island made of reeds with a impressive example of really strong reed boats that demonstrate the sense of the technique which led to Kon Tiki. Otherwise there is little of comparable interest on the island. To add to its attraction to tourists the moment we appeared a group started to play volley ball, but one suspects they stopped the moment we disappeared. Not the sort of combination to allure me.
We talked to Nicola a German lady who we had met earlier in Ollyantaytango. She teaches English but is currently on a sabbatical, the scheme is that she works for 3/4 normal pay but takes one year in four off to travel. On this occasion Quito in Ecuador where her brother teaches Marine Biology lives with his half- Peruvian family. She had spent four months on the Galapagos Islands and couldn't recommend them too highly but felt Isabella was the best island to visit. She also recommended the mountains of Huaraz and Ayuchucho in Peru even though the altitude of the Andes was too high for her. She had very liberal views like me and thought Bush was a very dangerous man.
On then to Taquile onto the port and then 500 steps up from the sea to the island proper, pretty exhausting at 4000 metres! First stop was a group lunch in a canteen like place offering a choice of fish or omlette. Once he realised we alone wished to stay overnight guide Andre organised a home-stay, although there are no hotels or guest houses not difficult because the whole island operates as a cooperative and houses with a spare room take visitors in strict rotation. He explained we could use the return half of our ticket whenever we wanted. We were thus shown to the house met the children Fernando and Sabrina and left some luggage in our bedroom.
Our bedroom was small with two double beds and a small table
Familiarity with the home-stay indicated no toilet, no water supply but solar powered heater, a bulb lit when connected to a car battery, clothes were washed in a bowl made from an old tyre hung out to drip at night and dry in the sun the next day. We slept in clothes covered by multiple blankets on two straw double mattresses, cold but surprisingly comfortable. Toilet in the nearby field was very cold but very beautiful, a clear sky full of stars, the moon reflecting in patterns on the lake dictated by the few wispy clouds. Not difficult to find a few stones to cover the mess and hide the paper.
Married men wear caps which they knit themselves sitting in the sun, Andre told us they were so tightly knitted as to hold water. The women spin whilst walking and we saw a man weaving on a frame, their shirts are made of a loosely woven cream wool.
Next morning we went for a walk up and down and around the island finding a new harbour on the other side of the island and some lonely new wooden buildings, we met just one other tourist and realised this development heralded the days of tour parties quite divorced from the islanders. Joan became quite short of breath, stopping after each third step, her pulse rate reached 100/min, while mine at 72 was only just above the 60 at home, we had both peaked at 85 on the long climb up the road to Sacsayhuaman. The soil was poor with small three inch corn cobs and potatoes the size of pullets eggs.
Were fascinated by the men of the island who all seemed to be knitting as they walked around. The married ones could be identified on sight because they wore red knitted hats.
We went to a hall where interesting things were laid out for sale, the room was more or less empty as the boat from Puno had not yet arrived. I decided to buy a woven belt with price labelled at 40, thinking it was dollars I offered what I thought was far less at 140soles. There were smiles and chatter all around when they realised I had thought it was 40USD and they had missed a trick.
When the boat was due we went back to the home-stay, they had hoped we would be stopping and in retrospect we too wished we had stayed. She displayed some of her wares and Joan bought a woven hat and a pair of knitted with a highly colourful pattern, which she wears on cold walks to this day some 12 years later.
Joan records the islanders make all their own clothes, the women wear thick wool skirts, like Welsh flannel, with many petticoats, often displayed having with hems decorated in coloured wool and with black shawls over their heads. Some ladies have the black over skirt pinned up to show off the coloured underskirts. The unmarried women cover their faces when passing a gringo (a male foreign tourist).
Our dinner was good soup followed by a fried egg with rice and potatoes. Breakfast was a thick Canadian style pancake covered with black syrup and Muna tea.
Left Cusco as planned by 8am train and arrived in Puno on the lake shore of Titicaca just before dark.
Very interesting journey largely through straw coloured step-lands with a backcloth of high mountains. When it reached the high point of 4350m there was a station stop on which local sellers of food and drink appeared out of the blue. We walked around gingerly wary because this was for us a new height record.
Sat opposite Alexandrov a professional Russian student of around 27 years, he explained that he could earn more from scholarships to study in the west than he could get from working in Russia. Very intelligent and thoughtful he had clear views on Chechnya in more depth than we could understand. He clearly blamed the heavy handed intervention by Yeltsin who wished to stop the break up of Soviet Russia, but sympathised with Putin because the country was now run by bandits.
He compared my kindly face with Georges Soros who had funded one of his scholarships as though hoping I would support him. We left the train in a hurry to find accommodation leaving our guide book behind, on discovering the loss of an essential aid, our view improved after returning to the station to find he had handed it as lost property.
8 June UROS and TAQUILE islands on TITICACA
Titicaca at 4000m is the highest navigable lake in the world and on the lakeshore there was a reassembled British made steamer as if to prove it. To the east and south it borders Bolivia, to the west Peru.
Took a boat onto the huge lake, of North American size which looks like a sea. A boatload of perhaps 25 from Inka Tours, four hours out via Uros and three hours back from Taquile.
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| Reed Boats on Uros Floating Island |
We talked to Nicola a German lady who we had met earlier in Ollyantaytango. She teaches English but is currently on a sabbatical, the scheme is that she works for 3/4 normal pay but takes one year in four off to travel. On this occasion Quito in Ecuador where her brother teaches Marine Biology lives with his half- Peruvian family. She had spent four months on the Galapagos Islands and couldn't recommend them too highly but felt Isabella was the best island to visit. She also recommended the mountains of Huaraz and Ayuchucho in Peru even though the altitude of the Andes was too high for her. She had very liberal views like me and thought Bush was a very dangerous man.
On then to Taquile onto the port and then 500 steps up from the sea to the island proper, pretty exhausting at 4000 metres! First stop was a group lunch in a canteen like place offering a choice of fish or omlette. Once he realised we alone wished to stay overnight guide Andre organised a home-stay, although there are no hotels or guest houses not difficult because the whole island operates as a cooperative and houses with a spare room take visitors in strict rotation. He explained we could use the return half of our ticket whenever we wanted. We were thus shown to the house met the children Fernando and Sabrina and left some luggage in our bedroom.
Our bedroom was small with two double beds and a small table
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| Our Homestay, Isla Taquile |
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| Fernando and Sabrina, a little nervous at first |
Married men wear caps which they knit themselves sitting in the sun, Andre told us they were so tightly knitted as to hold water. The women spin whilst walking and we saw a man weaving on a frame, their shirts are made of a loosely woven cream wool.
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| Inca Terraces on Isla Taquile |
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| Homestead on opposite (north)side of Isla Taquile |
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| Red hatted men are married |
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| Taquile Leaving Party, man knitting, woman spinning |
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| Joan's Taquile Hat |
Our dinner was good soup followed by a fried egg with rice and potatoes. Breakfast was a thick Canadian style pancake covered with black syrup and Muna tea.
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