Lake Titcaca

What i learned about Lake Titicaca....Titicaca stands for Puma Rock...the shape of the lake looks like a puma chacing after a rabbit. 70%of the lake is in Peru and 30% of the lake is in Bolivia. Although, i wasnt able to cross into Bolivia without paying a large sum of money for my visa...The perks of being a good ol´American!!! I did however, see the large snow capped mountains in the distance behind the beautiful lake.

Proinnsius (P), my irish friend, and I went with the tour group our man at the hostel offered us. We didnt feel like getting screwed over anymore by the men down at the docks. It turned out to be cheaper and more than we were wanting. All we wanted was to go to the island Amantani, but with this tour, we visited again the floating island of Uros, which we did two days before. Before getting to Amantani. There we were split up into groups and taken to our host families house where we would spend the night. The woman cooked us lunch, and we could rest in our rooms before having to meet up at the futbol field. Our guide then told us some info about the people and the island. And then we were to climb up the moutain which was called Pachitata, Father Earth, where there is a sacred temple at the top that the shamen people use for ceremonies. It was a 30-45 min hike up and P and i joked that we didnt sign up to climb any mountains. Half way up, our guide handed out 3 coca leaves and also told us to walk around the temple to the right 3 times. We didnt really understand why we were to do that or what the leaves were for, but as we walked around, i decided to name each one of my coca leaves for Love, Health, and Fourtune. I told this to P and he thought it was a great idea and did the same. His leaves got all crumpled in his pocket, so he smuched them up and let them go in the wind. As we walked around the temple, there was a rainbow behind us out over the lake. A small sprinkle of rain hit us and then cleared up and the sun came back out. It was extremely windy at the top of the mountain and cold. But it was an amazing view.

I then got another idea, and told P to pick a rock. As we were standing next to the stone wall surrounding the sacred temple, he picked out a rock from the wall...I said no, not that one, pick a new one from the ground! haha...So we both picked a rock, and i told him to put the intention of what he would want out of the future and put it into the rock and we will leave it in the stone wall with all this amazing energy of the sacred temple. So we both did, and as soon as he was going to put his rock in the wall, a dragonfly landed right infront of his face. We took a picture of the dragonfly and the rock, before continuing on.

We now had to go down the other side of this mountain and climb up the 2nd mountain of Pachimama, Mother earth, to another sacred temple. This was another 30some minutes hike up. When we got to the top we walked over to the edge to see a good view down the side of the mountain to the playa(beach) below. This island has many terraces and is big in the agriculter. You can see fields of corn, barley, wheat, and whatever else. It is so beautiful to look out over. At this time, the sun was going down and we had a beautiful sunset out over the water.

We walked around this temple and took a picture over the wall inside. It was starting to get dark and as we were walking away, i saw an old man sitting on a huge pile of rocks and had his hands held out, i figured he was absorbing the energy of this place and i thought that was a great idea and told P to follow me. As i sat on a rock, i asked if he wanted to do something else cool, beside the rock thing from before. So he sat on the rock next to me, and i told him how to connect with the rock and feel the connection of energy all the way down his spine and to the center of the earth. Then up again and reach to the sky. We sat there quietly for a while and when i was finished, i looked and P was still sitting there with his eyes closed. I waited until he was done, and just smiled, because I love sharing the wierd things i know with people, and love it even more when they actually enjoy them.

So we started to walk back toward the path, when i saw that same old man who was sitting on the rock, standing infront of a woman, sitting next to the temple. I figured he was a shamen and was doing some ceremony on this woman. I pointed him out to P and we stood and watched for a minute before continuing down the path.

It got dark fast, and even though i had a torch, we kept walking in the dark, with the path only light with the moomlight. We had to climb down Pachimama, up Pachitata again, and down the other side to get to the bottom to meet the young boy to take us to our family house. The path we followed him, we never would have found it ourselves in the dark. We got back by 630, and layed in bed for a while until dinner at 7. We were tired, we kept laughing because we didnt sign up for mountains to climb, much less 3.

After dinner, we got to rest again until the woman knocked on our door, and came in to dress me in their traditional dress. A beautiful embroidered white shirt, huge woolen red skirt and large hand made belt tied tightly around my ribs, that made it hard to breath. Then a beautiful black shall with embroidered flowers at the ends. P was dressed in a grey, huge poncho, that looked like a potatoe sac, and a alpaca hat. We followed her to the building up the hill, and i could hardly breath. Inside, there were 6 guys playing, guitars flutes and drum. and The local woman all grabbed us to dance. All the small groups of dancers turned into one huge circle as we spun around. The music went on for ever and we kept going around in circles. It got warm fast. It was fun, and my group was the last to leave the building.

Walking home, the sky was pitch black and filled with a billion stars, I could even see a galaxy. It was so amazing and beautiful. It was extremely cold and windy, and for the first time i heard the trees blowing in the wind to remind me of home.

In the morning, breakfast was to be at 7 and we didnt want to get out of bed as it was freezing out, and decided to wait until the woman came and got us. Well she never did, so we got up and quickly ate. We had to be down at the dock to leave at 8. When we got their the boat wasnt even their, so we went and sat on some rocks and watched the waves hitting them.

We were going to one more island, Taquili, an hour away before going back to Puno. I sat in the back outside of the cabin as P was inside listening to the tourguide. When we got off the boat, P asked if i heard what the plan was and i said no. He said ´good, then im not going to tell you´. Apparently, we had to climb up another mountain to get up to the plaza, then go for lunch, then walk some hundred steps down the other side to get to our boat before going back. Ahh. More climbing. We should have just stayed on the boat.

For most of the boat rides, P and I have sat on the top of the roof. We layed down in the front out of the wind and try and sleep. I love feeling the waves of the water, its so comforting to me. Well, the wind was still strong so the boat ride back was a bit rocky. As we layed down, we kept sliding back and forth along the floor. All i could do was laugh. It was so fun. Then water would splash up and over the boat and hit us. The driver went extremely slow and instead of it being a 3 hour ride, it was a 4 hour ride. Once we got into the peninsula, it calmed down a little bit. It was a fun trip and we just kept laughing about all the things that had happened.

When we got back, we were starving and went to our 3soles menu restaurant. But since the boat was late, they werent serving food yet, and we didnt want to climb up the big hills to our hostel, so we waited around for an hour before they reopened for dinner.

When we got back to the hostel, we ran into the others as they were leaving to get some food. We told them not to go where we did, as it was the worst meal weve had. I asked Laura if she climbed the mountain up to the Mirrador, that she said she wanted to do, instead of going to the island. She said, no, and i told her dont worry, we climbed mountains for you! haha.

We were both tired, and went to bed early. it was a good trip, and Im glad P went with me, since i was the only one who really wanted to go.

Its a beautiful Island, and wish i had more time to explore other island. But i had to go back to Arequipa to meet up with my friend Pablo, as we are going to go into the Jungle.