Puno and Lake Titicaca

Last weekend I headed out to Lake Titicaca, 7 hours away from Cuzco.

I took a night bus and got in at 5am, just in time to take a walk along the lake and see the sun rise, whcih was beautiful (for the most part). In Puno there´s something of a no-mans-land inbetween the lake, littlered with bottles, wrappers and the like. I was a but surprised by it, given that Puno is such a big tourist city. It was interesting to see how the locals converted this area into their own park of sorts. As early as 6am there were boys playing soccer and a woman getting yarn ready to knit on the stark area of land between the road and the lake.

I walked up to the main plaza to get a sense of the city, checked out some tourist agencies and booked a trip to Sillustani with one of them, and then headed back down to teh docks at about 8am. I got on a boat heading to the Uros Islands, floating islands made entirely of reeds. Behind me, a noisy group of high school kids got on the boat, and I thought the trip would be ruined for me by their chatter. It turns out, the school group was the luckliest thing that could have happened.

The group had arranged to visit three islands and have guides at various islands explaning this and that. Because I happened to be on their boat, they let me tag along and listen to their guides. And, it turned out they were from Urubamba! By the end of the tour we were all friends and they invited me to come with them on the rest of their tour (which I declined, I already had tickets for my own tour). I haven´t seen any of them in Urubamba yet, but I´m just waiting for the day taht someone calls ¨Julia!¨ and I turn to find a high school class waving at me.

The idlands themselves are fascinating. They are made entirely of reeds, which need to be replenished every 15 to 30 days. You sink into the reeds as you step, but everything is very sturdy. Unless you get too close to the edge of an island (where there is no reinforcement, because you´re not expected to walk in that direction) which, of course, I did by accident. In this case, the island drops perceptibly and you have the feeling that you´re standing on a sinking raft.

Surprisingly, some of teh idlands have solor pannels, electricity and running water. Apparently, Fujimori visited the islands (he was the only president to do so,) staide a night and offered the islanders bits and pieces of modern technology. The result is that, even though he´s now serving a 6 year prison sentence for various abuses commited while in office, teh general reaction of teh islands is that he was the best president in modern history.

The islands were origionally built to escape from war-like people on the main land (or so says my guide book) but now, sadly, it seems as though they were build for tourism. Origionally surviving on fishing, the islands now rely heavily on tourism. Pretty much every woman has become a crafts-maker, trying to sell her wares to visitng tourists. The islanders charge for taking pictures, and some capture endangered birds to show to tourists, and then charge for pictures with the birds or for holding the birds. The reliance is disgusting. It´s almost impossible to enjoy the islands for their architectural ingenuity because you´re constantly being heckled to buy this or buy that.

After my tour of the islands I headed back to the main plaza, intending to visit some museums, but discovered that they were all closed. Instead, I sat in the plaza and tried to read. As I was reading, a pack of shoe-shine boys, from ages 9 to 12, came up to me and tried to pursuade me to get my shoes shine (I was wearing hiking boots). After about 15 minutes of firmly saying no, they gave up, and instead began to chat with me about this and that: the US, fútbol, school, etc. It was fun to talk to them for about an hour. I think I got a better sense of life for kids here through our talks.

At two I headed to a tour of Sillustani, funeral towers from Incan and pre-Incan cultures. Along the way I met a sociology major from Lima, who was also headed for teh tour, it´s so strange the people you meet. The towers were majestic, if a little odd. They encorporated the typical Incan block cutting/placement method, whereby there´s no mortor; blocks fit perfictly together. t was incredible, because teh circumferance at the top of the towers was larger than that at the bottom of the twoers, meaning that some serious craftsmanship went into building the towers.

There weren´t just towers, however. The site is a perfict example of pre-Incan hierarchy: while rullers and other VIP´s were laid to rest in towers (along with their servants, wives and concubines), the rest were burried in the ground, where they could be walked on.

After the tour I made my way to Juli, about 1.5 hours away, on the edge of the lake, were I turned in early. My sleeping arrangements were fairly comical. The one decent guest house in Juli is a family-run affair and, as there were no extra rooms, I was put in a storage-room off of Grandma´s room. Grandma is a character. Primarily Quecha speaking, she listened to Quecha radio for a good deal of the night, slept in her traditional skirts, and kept her many top-hats in the storage room (I got a kick out of looking at them and trying them on). She offered to make me breakfast, was hard-of hearing when I told her I was fine and then proceded to ask me where I was from about five times. After she decided I was from Europe she told me about her adventures to Spain and Sweeden, where she had been invited for various artseans´ fairs. When I got up to leave in the morning she was all business: give me the 15 soles, now (she said it from her bed, and didn´t bother to get up at all during the transaction). It was an interesting experience.

I decided to stay the night in Juli to visit its four colonial churches. Because of the churches it is known as the ´Rome of Peru.´ It also has truely breath-taking views of the lake, especially in early morning. I got to all of the churches, entered one for part of mass and stayed at a curmbling and dilapidated church for a good deal of time, taking in its beauty. By 9am I was redy to go (I had got up at 6) and made my wat through a very interesting market to the combi station.

I headed back to Puno and, from Puno, to Juliaca, a fairly ugly town. I walked around its huge market, a great contrast from the tiny on in Juli, and happened apon a casino in the process. I went in, lost 2 soles at the slot machienes, but was able to oserve a very strange casino-culture while I was losing my 70 cents American. There were an equal number of men and women in the casino, which I found strange, but what I found stranger was that there were a good ammount of people in traditional dress also at the casino. It was a sight to see: women in their many skirts, little bowler hats atop their heads and delicately embroidered tops playing poker machienes or slot machienes. And these weren´t young women, but women that must have been in their late fifties or early sixties. I was reminded of the rampent gambling addiction on Indian Reservations in the US. But, of course, I have no idea what that is like here.

From Juliaca I caught a six-hour bus back to Cuzco. The views, especially at sunset, were beautiful. I got back to Urubamba at 9 and headed to a hotel to see a freinds parents, who happened to be staying in Urubamba. they were a welcomed sight from home, and checking out their (upscale) hotel was an interesting contrast to my acomidations the night before (and in all the places I´ve traveled).

All in all, a good weekend, although I would have liked to stay the night on one of the less touristy islands. Next time...