IMAGINING INCAS
A reader explores Lake Titicaca, which stretches in sacred splendour between Peru and Bolivia
RIO Willy, our locally made boat fitted with a car engine, spluttered out of Puno harbour and set off across Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake.
Capitano, our skipper, related what was certainly his favourite schoolyard joke, telling us that the “titi” part of the lake was in Peru and the “caca” part belonged to Bolivia.
We were on a trip to visit three of the lake’s myriad islands and our first stop was Taquile. Inca and pre-Inca ruins and agricultural terraces provide proof that this island has been inhabited for over 10 000 years. The present islanders are quiet, self-contained people who go about their daily business seemingly oblivious to the stares of tourists.
Young girls herd sheep as they have been herded for centuries; young men hew the soil of the terraces; women spin yarn from wool and then weave it into cloth on giant looms. It is the men, however, who fascinated us as they are the knitters of the community — and super-hero knitters at that. Their silver needles flash in the sun as they lean against the local church, perch on a stone wall or stroll casually across the village square. So superior is their knitting that the woollen hats they make could be used to transport water. Dressed in intricately embroidered waistcoats with woven sashes, black pointy caps on their heads, they attract much attention from camerawielding tourists.
For lunch, we chose a simple restaurant overlooking the startlingly blue lake and the rich, red terraces. Here we ate trout, fished that morning from the surrounding waters.
Our next stop was Amanti island, where Olga, our home-stay hostess, met us at the jetty. We gritted our teeth as we trekked up the steep, stone stairway. Before we had a chance to settle in we were invited to join the locals at their community centre for a game of soccer. It seemed everyone in the village had gathered to watch the gringos, suffering from the lack of oxygen, receive a sound beating. Perhaps the home team was spurred on by the presence of the island’s female population — ravenhaired women wearing white, embroidered blouses and colourful skirts, who were busy transferring images of birds, fish and local gods in a rainbow of cottons onto cloth to be sold to tourists, all the while paying careful attention to the game.
Little Udeet, the eight-year-old daughter of our hostess, had been tasked with taking us home for supper and she solemnly held my hand and guided us downhill. On the way we met her father, Joaquin, a stonemason who, Obelix-like, carried a large slab of stone on his back.
We sat down with the family in their mud-brick kitchen, where a pot of soup bubbled over an open fire in the tiny hearth. Communication by way of hand signals included an invitation to a fiesta that evening, which we were to attend dressed in traditional outfits.
If we had found the soccer energetic, the dancing and festivities were doubly so. Peruvian musicians on pipes and drums set a lively tempo and the dance-floor was a swirl of colour, thanks to the ladies’ skirts.
We were grateful for the lively pace as it meant that we fell into an exhausted sleep on our rather lumpy mattress in our bedroom above a barn, where the animals below snuffled and rustled. With no running water we were reliant on that brought up earlier from the lake and we kept our visits to the outhouse to a minimum as night-time temperatures on the island drop to an icy chill.
Walking on the floating islands is like walking on a large sponge
After a breakfast of pancakes and herbal tea, we bade farewell to our family.
A short boat trip had us arriving at what must be the strangest human habitat in existence, the Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca. Home to the Uros people, these islands are woven together with mud and weeds, which need to be replenished regularly as the reeds on the lower levels rot. Walking here is like walking on a trampoline or a large sponge. The first contact with the outside world made by the inhabitants of these islands was in the mid-1960s. Since then, solar power has allowed some mod-cons to be introduced but the islanders still rely heavily on tourism for their livelihood. A main attraction is a ride on gondola-like boats, also made from reeds.
Titicaca may be the butt of bawdy jokes but the beauty of its islands set in vivid blue waters coupled with its deeply traditional islanders certainly entitles it to the locally given name of Sacred Waters. We felt blessed to be its guests.