Puno (Uros, Amantani & Taquile islands)
Tuesday, January 31st, 2006
The Uros islands in Lake Titicaca are manmade. They consist of tortora reeds. People live on them, give tours and sell trinkets. The bottom layer of reeds rots, so the residents must continously add layers of reeds to the top.
Amantani island is a natural island on Lake Titicaca. This is the temple of Pachamama (mother earth), on top of the highest hill on the island. Nowadays the people attend Catholic church every Sunday, but they also worship Pachamama once a year, on June 21, their winter solstice.
On Amantani island, we stayed with a family: Eugenio, Wilma, Kevin, Kelly and Jocelyn. In the evening, Wilma dressed us up, and Eugenio took us to a dance with all the other dressed up foreigners.
The traditional activity for men and boys on Taquile Island is knitting. (The women are weavers.) Here’s a boy knitting a hat with 5 needles. I tried chatting with several knitting men, but they didn’t seem too impressed that I knit, too.
This boat was brought in pieces to Lake Titicaca via mule train from Arica, Chile, in the late 19th century! It took 6 years for the boat to get there from England, where the it was manufactured. It has been restored and is now a museum in Puno.
We’re heading to Copacabana, Bolivia tomorrow.
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