CHAPTER 28
After spending Christmas in Cusco, we thought a change of scenery would be nice for New Years. The truck seems crowded even with just Kacey and I, but over the past 6 months, we learned that if you pull out your best packing tricks, you can squeeze another person or two in with not too much apparent discomfort. My mom agreed to work on her contortionist skills, and we were soon on our way south, the three of us packed like sardines into the cab of the Golden Gringo. It’s really not that bad for short trips, but on longer journeys, like the 5 hour drive from Cusco to Puno, the person in the back seat can get a little sore in the saddle- when we left Colorado, we removed the fold down jump seats from the extended portion of the cab so that we could make room for our refrigerator and big metal lock-box. To everyone who has ridden with us over the past couple of months, and who might be reading this, please don’t take this the wrong way, but, usually I find it very comfortable in the driver seat and am all too ready to let someone else volunteer to fold themselves into the non-existent space behind the front seats. When faced with the long drive ahead though, and the option of either making my mom or my fiancé cram themselves into this painful position, I thought the gentlemanly thing for me to do would be to spare them this discomfort and take my long overdue turn in the back… oh man, what a mistake! Let the record show that I apologize right now to everyone who has had to withstand the agony of a few hours in the back seats of the Golden Gringo- I was wedged in the 1 foot space between the back of the driver’s seat and the cold metal corrugated panel of the back of the cab. The corners of our big red lockbox seemed to be especially pokey for some reason, and the various knobby protrudences like the seatbelt and the window latch offered no place to lean against comfortably. I felt like I was in one of those torture chambers that are too small for the prisoner to lie down, or sit up, or stretch out, or do anything but feel way too big. Luckily for me, the torment of the back seat was only temporary, and after a few hours they let me out on good behavior. I promise that if I ever do a trip like this again, I will invest in a more spacious vehicle.
The seedy town of Puno sits on the west shore of Lake Titicaca. This enormous inland lake spans the Peruvian boarder into Bolivia, and Puno is the principle port on the water. Because of this, we weren’t prepared for how rundown the city would turn out to be. Towns close to international boarders in Latin America consistently seem to be dirty, dangerous places, but Puno is a good 100 miles along the highway from the actual crossing, not to mention that it is a huge tourist base for most activities on the lake, so we thought it would be ok. After being hassled for a bribe by a traffic cop on the outskirts of town (stuck to our guns again and didn’t give him a penny!), and then 10 minutes later having an attempted brake-in on the truck when we parked to go and check out a hostel (the only time anyone had tried this during the whole trip- knock on wood…), we were about ready to pack up and head back to Cusco. Fortunately, there were only a few sights we wanted to see, so we decided we could handle a day or two in this bedlam, and then we would move on as quick as possible.
In the 1860’s and 70’s, a power struggle for Lake Titicaca between Peru and Bolivia was approaching its climax. In an astonishingly bold move, Peru ordered a set of iron hulled, steam driven warships to be built by a foundry in England, the pieces packaged and sailed across the Atlantic, under Cape Horn, and up the coast to Peru, where they were loaded on to the backs of mules. Then, over a grueling six year period, the 2677 separate pieces, some weighing as much as 350lbs, were laboriously hauled almost 200 miles through the aired dessert of what is now Northern Chile, up and over the Andes at 15,500 feet, and then reassembled on the shores of Lake Titicaca at Puno. Having just driven through this same terrain, we had a special appreciation for those who overcame this daunting task- at the time it must have seemed like sheer ludicrously.
After serving its time as a gunship, and then later as a mail boat for the distant towns around the coast of Lake Titicaca, one of the two original ships hauled over the mountains, the MN Yavari, is now owned by a nostalgic British lady who is sparing no expense restoring the tired vessel to its former glory. Kacey, Mom and I found the Yavari sitting at anchor in front of a posh lakeside hotel on the outskirts of Puno. We were soon invited aboard, and being the only tourists there, we were given a private tour of the whole ship.
After the requisite photos pretending to be captain behind the wheel off the ship, we caught a taxi back to our hotel, and hurriedly showered and changed into our finest- it was New Year’s Eve, and we had tickets to a fancy dinner show at a local restaurant. The food was only so-so, but a young group of performers lit up the small stage with 6 or 7 ‘traditional’ dances- I say ‘traditional’ because they ranged from go-go girls in neon glitter jumping around in a circle, to a duo of bird masked musclemen mock fighting, and the strangest of all, two guys dressed as peasants took turns lashing each other’s bare legs with a real leather whip and then pretended to force themselves on the two female dancers who had been watching the machismo contest from the side of the stage. Throughout the whole show, a ragtag bunch of musicians crowded around the outside of the small stage tirelessly playing their guitars, drums, and reed flutes- they literally didn’t stop for more than 2 hours!
Following the dance show, the lights were turned off, excessive amounts of incense were lit creating a thick smoke throughout the restaurant and an old indigenous shaman was propped up in the middle of the stage. We were each given three dried coca leaves upon which to bestow our wishes for the new year, and every last person in the restaurant, including the cook, took their turn presenting their leaves to the shaman to receive a blessing. This ritual was quite involved, so you can imagine how long it took for all 60 of us. Kacey wrapped up the show, not by choice, but because I had accidentally eaten my coca leaves before we were given instructions about the wishes and all. It is common to see a cheek full of coca leaves being chewed by most men walking down the street here in Peru, so when I received mine, I promptly stuffed them into my mouth. But, because I had never tried it before, I didn’t know that the men chew fresh leaves, not dried ones- needless to say, these tasted awful and ended up in my napkin. At the beginning of this marathon ritual we had no idea that everyone in the audience was expected to go up, so Kacey graciously let me use her leaves. Two hours later, when all eyes were on her as the last one who hadn’t gone yet, her eyes were on me with a glowering stare. She reluctantly made her way up to the shaman- sans leaves- but he blessed her just them same. I can only imagine what her wishes would have been at that moment- but that’s why I love her, she’s such a trooper! Dancing and champagne soon followed, and we brought in the New Year with a smooch, as streamers and confetti flew, the sound of firecrackers exploding in the streets.
Our New Year’s party had been a cultural experience to be sure, but on New Year’s Day we were in for something even more strange. We had signed up for a tour of the Uros floating islands, and our boat left at 7am. We were understandably sluggish, and I was a little disappointed with myself that I hadn’t had more foresight to sign us up for the afternoon tour, but when we came within sight of the ‘islands’, all hints of my hangover vanished. Some things are amazing because they are beautiful, or very old, or are connected to history in some pivotal way. Some things are amazing due to their giant size, or rarity, or value. And some things, like the Uros floating islands, are amazing because of the absurdity that someone ever even thought of them, let alone a whole group of people agreed that they were a good idea, and what’s more that those same people have continued to use them for over 800 years.
The islands are actually big ‘cubes’ of roots from the prolific totora reed that have been sawed off the bottom of the lake, and tethered together with rope. This floating foundation is then covered by a 3 to 4 foot layer of the stalks from the same reed plant to create a thick, spongy ground for the island. The more than 40 islands are constructed on a massive scale, some almost as big as a football field, and traditionally the locals use long reed boats to travel between them. Groups of 20 or 30 people live on each island in small huts made from, again, reeds, and they eat a diet of fish supplemented by the marrow from, yet again, the same reeds. I would have named them the Reed People, but they are actually the Uros, and originally moved onto these ridiculous islands hundreds of years ago to escape the hostility of nearby tribes. The funny thing is, the inhabitants continually have to add layers of reeds to build up the surface of the island as the bottom layers become water logged and rot, causing the whole mass to sit lower in the water. After about 40 years of this the island becomes unusable, and they have to make a new one.
Standing on the spongy mass, I got the distinct impression that I was on a sinking island, rather than a floating one. With every step, your feet would settle 3 or 4 inches in to the tangled mat of reeds, and it took a while before you gained the confidence that your next step wasn’t going to break through and put you knee high into the mucky water just below the surface of the island. We watched a short demonstration on how the islands are made, had a taste of the reed marrow (similar to a water chestnut), and got invited into a young woman’s hut where she made us try on some of her traditional clothing- they were a little tight over our normal cloths and coats, but that just made everyone laugh all the more.
Waving goodbye to the colorful islanders as they sang a parting song for our tour group, we loaded back onto the boat and headed off for our next destination of the day- this time, a real island. The fact that there are natural islands in Lake Titicaca, made from stone and earth, with no need to constantly add layers of reeds to prevent sinking, made me question all the more the decision making process of the Uros- why would you go to the trouble and inconvenience of constructing fake floating islands, if there were plenty of real islands to live on?
Well, the people of Isla Taquile have their own strange traditions, though they don’t include the use of reeds. Whenever a young lady was about to wed, her father would cut off her long black hair and weave it into a wide belt, which would be given to the husband-to-be as a wedding gift. I wondered if a girl’s hair length governed how fat of a man she could marry, but my question somehow got lost in translation. Thankfully we don’t have the same tradition- Kacey’s hair is pretty short so I would have to lose a lot of weight before this coming September…
The next day, we all got up early again, but this time it was to take mom to her bus. She was going back to Cusco, while we headed further south- the deserts of Bolivia had hidden wonders that would prove to be the most extraordinary we had seen yet.
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