Lago Titikaka

I´m finding it harder and harder to amuse myself here these days. I know I should be really excited about having visited places like Lake Titikaka (the highest navigatable lake in the world), but Im really not. It was really pretty and the mountains surrounding to it only added to its beauty. However, it was almost just another lake in my eyes.

Visiting the floating islands (Uros Islands) was pretty cool. They are built with this dirt stuff with reed laid on top. There is no electricity and no plumbing. The people living there wear traditional clothes and speak Quechua. It was really cool because you can feel the island moving beneath you as you walk on it and we got to ride in a reed boat. The people charge a lot for the souvenirs that they make and the guide told us that they have so much money that they don´t know what to do with it, so they just drink and party for five days straight when someone gets married. That fact was a little less than impressive to me.

We spent the night on another island, Amantani, this one was natural, not floating. There was again, no plumbing (which was not very fun might I add), and no electricity. They are vegetarians, so a lot of potatoes and rice are eaten. We hiked up to one of two temples called Pachatata or something like that. It means Father Earth. You´re supposed to walk three times around it counter clockwise and make a wish. That was kind of interesting, but it was a bit annoying to me that our guide kept telling us to be careful of altitude sickness (because we were 14,000 feet above sea level, another 3,000 from what we´ve sort of gotten used to). Yet, the guide had us walking up a mountain, old people included, without breaks. Im honestly surprised that no one passed out, I was out of breath within minutes. Anyway, the sunset from there was really pretty.

The family we stayed with that night was very nice. It consisted of a mother, her dauther, and 9 year old son. I dont know where the father was, and I know that there were three other children staying with their grandmother. The boy, Eddy, was probably the cutest kid Ive met here thus far. He was constantly giggling and talking to us. We taught him a few english words and called him El Capitan. His accent was adorable too. We even had him calling us names (in spanish obviously). Paul was the donkey. Lauren was the yellow cat. Paul taught him to call me la bruja negra, or black witch, and JT was the rabbit. He was a lot of fun, and basically the only thing I didn´t want to leave about the whole trip. The best moment of the whole thing was probably when the boys went out at night to use the bathroom and on their way back, Eddy jumped out at them and the both of them screamed.

The last day of the trip we visited a third Island, Taquile. While hiking (yet again) was a bit annoying, we did learn a few cool facts. Apparently it takes these people about 15 days to fall in love. When a boy reaches the age of 14 or 15, he collects a lot of really tiny rocks and puts them in his pocket. When he sees a pretty girl, he throws the smallest at her. She then decides if she wants to have children with him or not, right then and there. If she does, they move in together to his parents house and live there for a year. They then decide to have kids or not and if so, they have a child, then get married. You must have a child before getting married here because there is no divorce. Or police for that matter. In order to have a political position, you have to have at least 2 kids. The dress is interesting too. A single girl wears big yarn things on her head covering, while a married one wears small. Important people wear sombreros. Single boys wear a half red, half white hat. To one side if they have a girlfriend, to the other if they do not. Married men wear a more colorful hat.

Overall it was pretty interesting, well see where the next few weeks lead.