Lake Titicaca

08/16/11

This year I celebrated my birthday in a very different manner than usual. Most years I have some kind of hangout/party at home with friends and some family.  This year I spent the day/night on the Island of Amantani in the middle of Lake Titicaca with an indigenous Aymara family.

Saturday night I took an overnight bus from Cusco to Lake Titicaca at Puno.  As I arrive to the counter of the company Transmar, where I had bought my ticket, I witnessed some pretty sketchy stuff take place.  The guy had charged me 120 soles ($45) for a round trip ticket, and when he arrived he gave me the tickets with the prices blacked out in permanent marker.  I didn’t think much of the incident until I got on the bus and asked what they had payed for the same kind of seat as mine. 40 soles in each direction. Then I looked at my return ticket and saw that it was only semicama (half bed at 25 soles instead of a full bed.) The guy had ripped me off because I was a gringo. Instead of 120 soles, I should have payed 65. I was furious. It wasn’t such an issue of the difference in $25, but more the fact that many Peruvians think they can trick you and charge you more because you are white. I was pissed.

 

Blacked out price on my ticket

Nonetheless, on that bus I met 3 middle-aged Peruvian men with whom I would become close in the next two days. I went to Lake Titicaca without a reservation for a hostel or a plan of what to do–very un-Daneel like. When they told me that they were spending 2 days on islands in Lake Titicaca and spending 1 night with a family on an island, they had won me over.  

The morning after our overnight bus everything was taken care of. Pickup, breakfast, transportation to the islands. It was a great feeling.  The Uros Islands are incredible. The Uros Indians of Lake Titicaca live on floating "islands" made by hand from totora reeds that grow in the shallow waters of the lake. There are some 45 floating islands in Lake Titicaca. The islands first came into contact with the modern world in the mid-1960s, and their inhabitants now live mostly off tourism, which seemed a little odd to me. They seem like objects in a museum that foreigners come to observe. 

Floating Reed Uros Islands

         

Next, we spent the afternoon and night on Amantaní, a circular island located about 4 1/2 hours from Puno.  The island is very rustic and unspoiled and is beautifully terraced and home to farmers, fishers, and weavers.  We hiked to a peak called Pachatata (Father Earth), with amazing views of the lake. The 3 Peruvian gentlemen and I stayed together at one host family that prepared us very simple meals, essentially several different species of boiled potatoes and Peruvian tubers with quinoa.

PS. The family had no electricity or refrigeration.

Our host family was so cute. For my birthday they made me a beautiful necklace out of flowers from their garden. That night, which also coincided with the eve of my birthday, was the last day of a week-long dance festival, which was insane. Imagine essentially each and every Amantaní native (1000) getting drunk and dancing in traditional garb. Then the family dress us up in local outfits – the women in layered, multicolored, embroidered skirts and blouses, and the men in wool ponchos. I also mastered dancing to techno cumbia music, which is extremely popular in Peru. We also visited Taquile Island (Isla Taquile), but it was very similar to Amantaní, so I won’t 

 expound.

  

Amazing sunset from Isla Amantaní

 

 Crazy dance festival

 Dancing with my host family sister at the dance festival

Once back in Puno, the 3 Peruvians and I explored the city, awaiting our 10pm bus back to Cusco. Once we arrived in Cusco, I eagerly awaited my encounter with the man who had cheated me in my bus ticket. I approached him. (The following coversation took place in Spanish)

“Señor, do you know why I’ve come to speak to you?”

“No idea. Did you have a good trip in Puno” (He clearly knows why I’ve come, but is playing dumb)

“Sir, you ripped me off. You think white people are stupid. We’re not. I demand my 55 soles back. (I explain everything he had done and why he better give me my money back.)  If you don’t give me my money back, I will destroy your company by publishing on tripadviser and other similar websites, facebook, my blog, that nobody should buy from you, because you are an evil cheater.”

At this point, as out of a movie, my 3 Peruvian friends come to back me up and start arguing with the vendor. It was great. The guy clearly didn’t have a good reason for anything he had done, but tried to say that because I had bought it so far in advance (a week) the prices were more expensive. What a prick! In the end, he only gave me 40 soles back, because he said I’d have to return to the bus station to talk to his manager, (clearly a load of BS.)

DON’T BUY FROM TRANSMAR.

I hope he learned his lesson. 

Tomorrow I meet up with Rabbi Tarlow in Lima to visit some Incan ruins (Pachacamac) and the Archeology Museum, and then we head to Huanuco tomorrow night on an overnight bus to convert some Huanuqueñans to Judaism and to celebrate Rolo’s Bar Mitzvah. It's bound to be an exciting last week in Peru.