Last Friday night 14 of us filled the lower level of an overnight bus (comfortable reclining seats and advertised warmth) and drove the tedious switchbacks to 14K ft and faster switchbacks down to Puno on the shores of the lake. Luckily most of us brought sleeping bags or blankets as the advertised warmth was no solution to the 20 degree temps (or less) outside the window. It was indeed a sleepless night, but my sleeping bag is superb! It always does its one job - keeping me warm. We were taken in a van to complete the night at a very dreary house way outside Puno. We all felt better for being together! Sleeping in such circumstances was strange, but doable, given the total fatigue of a 6 hour pitchdark ride in the cold of winter.
The lake is like an ocean. I read that it's 14M years old. Recently, with global warming the lake level has dropped almost 3 feet due to lack of glacial melt volume. It is about 1/3 the surface size of Lake Erie, but is larger in volume. Blue, blue sky, bright sun, dappled clouds and the snowcapped mtns of Bolivia just on the edge of the horizon.
Puno itself is an ugly city and not worth talking about, except to say that its inner harbor is engulfed in that horrible duckweed that used to be the aquarium lovers dream and I guess is now, along with sewage leaching, a world wide scourge. Once we were on the water it was another world. Tall bull rushes lined the edges of the waterway until about 2 miles out where they spread out on the northside claiming a large swath of the lake. Ixt's important to mention this because these bullrushes were a refuge against the Spanish during the early colonial times and have become a way of life for some of the Amayra indigenous people.
Uros is a collection of ~ 60 floating islands made of bull rushes. Apparently during big storms, swathes of rushes are disrupted at their roots and the root structures then float. These floating mud/root coagulations are collected over time and tied together into ~ 60' x 60' rafts. The rope used to be made of bullrush fiber and renewed every 2-3 months, but now they use nylon rope. Over this base is layers of crisscrossed reeds, which do need renewing every few months. Sitting on it all are reed huts. The mudbrick stoves use dry reeds for fuel. The solar panels make lighting easier!
It's squishy, but solid to walk on. About 4 families lived there, mostly parents and very young children - with the school aged children being in Puno. The other islands seemed about the same size and population with everyone trying to make a little extra money selling their crafts. In the moment it's enticing to take away a tangible memory of such a beautiful and unique location, but thinking back to the number of things in my own house, bought under the same circumstances, I resisted, except for photos (1 sole each)
The beautiful reed boats used to be all reeds, but now are filled with used soda/water bottles for flotation and longer term use. Most of us fit on the boat and we were poled around the lake for about 30 min. It's quite shallow there and the fishing is apparently pretty terrific, as is the bird hunting. The calm and the silence was powerful. There was a general hush among us as if we all needed that ancient tranquility - or perhaps we were still tired from the bus ride!
Next stop the steep, multi terraced landscape of Amantani. This is the most rugged living I have ever experienced. Every single terraced " garden" on the very steep slopes is hand turned and managed. There is no electrical or gas driven machinery here. They tried a gas-driven generator to give light to the island, but the cost of gas was too much and only the wires remain. Now they use small solar panels to light one high efficiency bulb per building.
But back to the farming. Even burros don't help turn the soil, though there are a few burros there - which I assume are used mainly to help bring heavy things up the steep slopes from the harbor. There are also sheep, but for all the talk hare about baby alpaca wool, I have yet to see an alpaca or a llama grazing anywhere in view. The crop is almost solely a few different kinds of potato. There are a very few quinoa fields here. I didn't see any corn on this island. Because the soil is so poor and the altitude is so high (13K ft) things don't grow well. It is really subsistence living. Tourism is shared. By that I mean that the families host tourists on a rotating basis, getting about 8 soles ($3) for providing room and board. Each family receives visitors during the high season about twice a month.
Our family's house was built of mud brick, plastered over with whitewash. The floors were either dirt or boards on dirt. The roofs were corrugated metal and when the hail storm hit in the middle of the night we were there, it was a wild wake-up call. The beds are made of sticks with roping for support, which gives a hammock-like feeling. the table and benches were rough hewn boards on chopped to height tree branches. There was one plastic tarp covered "hutch" with a few hand cast bowls and some utensils. The kitchen was basically on the floor with wood fired "stove" and several pots. We ate delicious quinoa soup and the next day potato soup as well as trout and fried potatoes at night and fried dough for breakfast. Lots and lots of moonya tea - called dynamite tea when mixed also with coca leaves - to offset the altitude lethargy. (to me the moonya herb tasted and looked like a form of thyme)
Everything was as simple as it could be and we all talked about whether we could live as simply. Just the stuff still left in my stripped down house would more than fill their 4 rooms. So much stuff! (have to include kitchen utilities in the definition of 'stuff') On the hike up the steep side of the island to the mountain top (13.5K ft) I was incredibly winded. I could get up the trail at the end of the line, while all the 20 something's took off like gazelles - but even they weren't as fast as our hostess who took off 'walking' straight up the hill, in loose fitting shoes while spinning her yarn, which was her constant preoccupation. I didn't see her knit or weave, though she was willing to sell us some hats she'd made. Her lungs must be huge!
The terrace walls were just rocks piled haphazardly on top of each other. If they wanted to keep animals contained, the walls were lined with a thorn bush. Some of the "gardens" were 10' x 10' ft others might have been 30' x 30'. I wondered if all that work really produced much, but it was the beginning of their planting season and no green showed.
I made it almost to the top (freezing wind, gorgeous sunset views including glacial mtn tops in Bolivia) and then down a stone paved trail under the southern stars and the astoundingly clear Milky Way. One well traveled walker said that he'd never been anywhere that the stars were so clear and so close.
A beautiful day's walk on Taquile Island ( much more used to "the finer things". I even saw a Direct TV dish!) Hot, clear, bigger fields, bigger animals, still a co-operative living situation i.e. all restaurants served the same lunch and at the same price with 10% of proceeds going to the community. The hike down to the harbor was 550 irregular steps practically vertically down ~500'. Some teenagers were getting new beds and were hauling the parts up the steps using straps across their foreheads and over their shoulders to support everything. There is no way any of us, even the most fit, could have done such a thing.
Three hours of blissful sunshine on the boat ride back to Puno was trailed by a gigantic storm. The dark circular cloud and even darker rain/snow core reminded me of photos of Hurricane Katrina as it made landfall. We were all relieved as the boat pulled out ahead.
The bus ride back notable only for the reclining seat back that crept slowly upright about every 30 min. Oh well - here I am safe and sound with a mind full of memories.
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