Tuesday, May 10, 2005
from Cuzco to La Paz
Soooooooooo...
After a final great night in Cuzco, we took a bus to a little town called Puno, located on the shores of Lago Titikaka. The lake - beautiful. The town - pretty blah. We didn´t do much in Puno other than sleep.
From Puno, we took a 1.5 day tour of some trippy floating reed islands and checked out the islands of Atmantani and Tequile. Would you actually believe people LIVE on these floating reed islands? They harvest the reeds growing around them and lay them down layer by layer every few months, making what looks and feels like a giant mattress. The houses and boats are made of the same material making these habitats completely organic - it´s nuts! However, this population of reed dwellers is dwindling fast so there probably won´t be too many ´natural´ habitats in the future other than those made purely for tourists.
On Atmantani Island, we had the opportunity to stay with a family in their home. It was an incredibly rustic scene - each family had a plot of land where they grew their crops of potatoes (3-5 different kinds), maize, tomatoes and quinoa. Each had a small heard of sheep, the token noisy donkey, a cat or two, chickens, and a few guinea pigs running around in a hut seperate from the house that was used as the kitchen. When we got to the island, our host, Delia, a 19 year old girl, met us at the dock and brought us into her house. Robin and I wanted to get to know the family and their way of life, so in out badly spoken Spanish we offered to help cook lunch. The only problem was... we sucked at peeling potatoes. Delia would peel/pare 3 or 4 potatoes in the same amount of time it took us to do one (mind you we were trying to do this with really small potatoes and blunt knives). Lunch was served in our room, but because we wanted to get to know the family we asked if we could have dinner all together. So... we had dinner together, except that meant Robin and I were at a small table facing the wall while the family ate behind us on the floor beside the bed. I guess they don´t get many requests like that! After dinner, we opted to relax in our room only to find that 10min later, Delia and her mom came into the room with armloads of clothing. They made us stand up and dressed us in a matter seconds with the islanders traditional clothing. Phew! They cinch those belts tight! When we got to the main plaza, we found that all tourists had been dressed in traditional clothing and were hopelessly trying to follow the dance. There is a lot of twirling and spinning, and a LOT of running around in a deformed circle at deliriously high speeds. I´m surprised no one got flung against the wall!
Having had enough of Peru for a little while, we spent yesterday on the other side of Lago Titikaka in the small town of Copacabaña, Bolivia. If anyone is looking for a cheap hippie hideaway, this is the place to be. The place is small, beautiful, and very very relaxed. There are no taxi´s honking at you and no locals hollering at you at every turn trying to make you buy their goods. And the word ¨cheap¨ doesn´t quite describe this place completely. $1US = 8Bs (Bs is Bolivianos). We had really nice clean room with a private bathroom for 40Bs, and a huge dinner (complete with salad, soup, entree and dessert) for 30Bs. You could stow away in Copacabaña for ages. The only crappy thing there was that last night Robin got food poisoning there. It was a looooong and not so memorable night. I had a hell of a time trying to use the public phones trying to make a collect call to our health insurance companies, but luckily it all worked out in the end. She´s doing a lot better now and we´ve been able to track down some antibiotics and ginger to settle her stomach. So for today and tomorrow, we´re splurging a little bit in La Paz, staying at a hotel rather than a hostel. Things are looking up! We´ve met some great and really helpful people along the way, but more on that later...
All´s good =)
After a final great night in Cuzco, we took a bus to a little town called Puno, located on the shores of Lago Titikaka. The lake - beautiful. The town - pretty blah. We didn´t do much in Puno other than sleep.
From Puno, we took a 1.5 day tour of some trippy floating reed islands and checked out the islands of Atmantani and Tequile. Would you actually believe people LIVE on these floating reed islands? They harvest the reeds growing around them and lay them down layer by layer every few months, making what looks and feels like a giant mattress. The houses and boats are made of the same material making these habitats completely organic - it´s nuts! However, this population of reed dwellers is dwindling fast so there probably won´t be too many ´natural´ habitats in the future other than those made purely for tourists.
On Atmantani Island, we had the opportunity to stay with a family in their home. It was an incredibly rustic scene - each family had a plot of land where they grew their crops of potatoes (3-5 different kinds), maize, tomatoes and quinoa. Each had a small heard of sheep, the token noisy donkey, a cat or two, chickens, and a few guinea pigs running around in a hut seperate from the house that was used as the kitchen. When we got to the island, our host, Delia, a 19 year old girl, met us at the dock and brought us into her house. Robin and I wanted to get to know the family and their way of life, so in out badly spoken Spanish we offered to help cook lunch. The only problem was... we sucked at peeling potatoes. Delia would peel/pare 3 or 4 potatoes in the same amount of time it took us to do one (mind you we were trying to do this with really small potatoes and blunt knives). Lunch was served in our room, but because we wanted to get to know the family we asked if we could have dinner all together. So... we had dinner together, except that meant Robin and I were at a small table facing the wall while the family ate behind us on the floor beside the bed. I guess they don´t get many requests like that! After dinner, we opted to relax in our room only to find that 10min later, Delia and her mom came into the room with armloads of clothing. They made us stand up and dressed us in a matter seconds with the islanders traditional clothing. Phew! They cinch those belts tight! When we got to the main plaza, we found that all tourists had been dressed in traditional clothing and were hopelessly trying to follow the dance. There is a lot of twirling and spinning, and a LOT of running around in a deformed circle at deliriously high speeds. I´m surprised no one got flung against the wall!
Having had enough of Peru for a little while, we spent yesterday on the other side of Lago Titikaka in the small town of Copacabaña, Bolivia. If anyone is looking for a cheap hippie hideaway, this is the place to be. The place is small, beautiful, and very very relaxed. There are no taxi´s honking at you and no locals hollering at you at every turn trying to make you buy their goods. And the word ¨cheap¨ doesn´t quite describe this place completely. $1US = 8Bs (Bs is Bolivianos). We had really nice clean room with a private bathroom for 40Bs, and a huge dinner (complete with salad, soup, entree and dessert) for 30Bs. You could stow away in Copacabaña for ages. The only crappy thing there was that last night Robin got food poisoning there. It was a looooong and not so memorable night. I had a hell of a time trying to use the public phones trying to make a collect call to our health insurance companies, but luckily it all worked out in the end. She´s doing a lot better now and we´ve been able to track down some antibiotics and ginger to settle her stomach. So for today and tomorrow, we´re splurging a little bit in La Paz, staying at a hotel rather than a hostel. Things are looking up! We´ve met some great and really helpful people along the way, but more on that later...
All´s good =)
# posted by doris : 2:54 PM
