Puno...
After a 7 hour bus ride from Cusco´s Terminal Terrestre (central bus station), we arrived in freezing Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca (enter bawdy puns here…), “the world’s highest navigable lake.”
As we are now officially travelling on the Gringo Trail, it seemed fitting to sign up for our first touristy tour since July, to the islands of the lake. Hey, it’s cheap and easily organized. And once in a while, it’s okay to be herded around and feel like a tourist attraction yourself!
We boarded a boat…
An hour and a half later, we arrived at the famous floating reed islands on the lake. The islands have been inhabited by the Uros people for centuries. Uros is Quechua for “Lazies,” and the people earned this moniker for constructing islands out of 2 metre thick pads of reeds to live on, in order to avoid paying taxes (in the form of labour) to the conquering Inca empire. They sustained themselves through fishing and eating the reeds themselves. Now, they fish trout, imported from Canada, and sell artesania crafts to tourists. It’s still pretty weird to walk on the reeds, a bit like walking on a wrestling mat.
Three hours from the floating islands is the island of Amantani (actually made of earth). We were paired up with a family in whose home we would eat very basic, traditional food and stay overnight. In a small room with an exceptionally low doorway, we ate quinua soup, potatoes, and boiled eggs, usually accompanied by powerful muna tea.
At night, Jess was dressed up in several layers of skirts, an embroidered blouse, and a veil, typical of women from the lake and an example of the heavy Muslim influence brought by the Spaniards, who at the time of conquest had only just managed to evict their Arab occupiers after 700 years. I got a poncho and floppy-eared hat. With our hostess and the other tourists, we went to a fiesta, everyone looking very much Peruvian, and danced to a terrible representation of Andean music by a band of pre-pubescent amateur musicians, who went around demanding a tip from every gringo there. Nevertheless, we had a great time getting flung around a tiny room, dodging chairs, and smiling till it hurt.
Early the next day, we went to Taquile Island, where the locals have gone to great lengths to preserve the old way of life. Unlike those from Amantani, they do not export their handicrafts, there are no migratory workers, coming and going to and from Lima, and there are no carts with wheels or even horses. Everything is carried around on the backs of the people, just as everything was during Inca times (the Incas themselves lacked the wheel!). Like Amantani, the women wear veils, but here they also speak in whispers in the presence of men, again exemplary of the Islamic influence during the conquest.
Puno to Bolivia…
We made some really nice and diverse friends on the lake – a forgotten benefit of actually taking the touristy tours. We hung out with two Swedish girls who had just finished a stint in Cuba and got us really excited for our tentative plans to go to Castroland. I also had the chance to learn a bit about Canada as we made friends with two Quebecers, one of whom is a separatist. It was great to get to understand the separatist perspective a little bit more and to compare their argument to that of Irish nationalists. At least I think that’s interesting. Plus, I got really motivated to learn French … again.
You may not believe this: there was a girl on the tour from a small little island off the coast of Ireland, too. She’s totally fluent in Irish and taught me some! I never thought I would get the chance to learn the language of my homeland (that word sounds so eerily Yankee now, doesn’t it?) while travelling in South America. There you go…
So, on the bus to Bolivia from Puno, we got the best surprise we ever thought we’d get. We met a new friend from Slovenia, Sylvester (Silvo). It’s rare to meet someone travelling in South America from a country that only has barely two times the population of our humble Canadian city, and even rarer for him to be a really great guy. A diamond in the rough! Jess will agree that travelling has become so much more light-hearted since he´s been accompanying us. He’s with us now in Bolivia, so you’ll surely hear more about him as we go along – and probably learn to love him as we do!
We weren’t expecting to run into tragedy while doing something as normal as taking a bus. Reading, dozing, stretching the legs, as one does on a bus, we were taken by surprise when the truck in front of us rammed into the front of the bus in front of it. Tires shot across the road, and our own bus braked heavily. All the passengers got up to see what had happened.
I’m still unsure of the facts, but it seems the bumper of a bus entered the cab of the truck in front of us when the bus braked as the truck tried to overtake it. All I could see were two young boys in hysterics, pleading to God that their mother be accepted into heaven. I could not take my eyes off them as I thought about my own mom at home. I still feel terrible even writing this. After a while, we drove around the truck with the demolished cab, and though I didn’t look, Jess said she saw a woman in the cab, clearly bleeding to death in front of a group of helpless onlookers, any medical help being at least a few hours away.
It is a terrible reminder of the totally stupid drivers not only in South America but in every part of the world who simply go too fast. Those poor kids, though: they saw their mother die in front of them.
Nevertheless...
Trying our best to forget the last thing they saw in Peru, two gringos crossed the Peruvian-Bolivian border, while one Canadian and one Irish passport each got a stamp from the country named after Simon Bolivar (South America´s famous liberator), the land of the demise of Che Guevara, and the home of South America´s poorest people.
Until next time...
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