Tiwanaku
(Bolivia) and Las Islas Flotantes de Uros (Peru)
Jueves 10 – domingo 13 de enero
I get up at around 7 in my La Paz hostal (run down, windowless rooms,
shared bath) with an upset stomach and feeling really tired. I have to get
going. I have breakfast in the nearby market: coffee and a fried egg sandwich.
I am getting used to so-so coffee: usually instant or sometimes very strong
espresso served with hot water (to taste), sugar, but no milk. Or, more often,
no coffee at all. Of course, any of the above is superior to coffee that you
buy along the highway at truck stops in Canada, or in small town restaurants in
the Canadian prairies. It makes no sense that North Americans are so addicted
to coffee but do not grow it, and in South America where they grow lots, most
people do not drink it.
Main drag in La Paz
The market itself is fascinating: like many mercados in many S American
cities, there is a section for hot drinks, one for juices, one for snacks and
one for meals. And then of course, one for crafts, one for medicines, etc. In
the Mercado San Pedro in Cusco, there is even a section for chocolate and
coffee. What makes this one special is that it is on four floors, and each
stand is completely boxed off. The ones serving food have glass sliding walls
allowing light in and an entry on both sides. I notice here like elsewhere,
that many many micro-stores have a photo of a movie star alongside their logo
and store information. I bet that Penelope Cruz or Angelina Jolie or many
others do not know that they are endorsing a tiny hairstylist, or perfume store
or car battery outlet in La Paz, Lima, Cochabamba, etc. I expect (and hope) that they would be
amused.
If Penelope Cruz only knew
After breakfast, I go down to the Travel Agency with which I cycled the
‘Death Road’. I was supposed to pick up a t shirt and a CD of photos taken by
our guide after the trip, but I had not returned to La Paz with the other tour
members, but rather continued on to Coroico and then the Amazon. Now, almost
two months later, I am able to pick up the t shirt (‘I cycled the Death Road
and survived’: personally, I just needed another t shirt) but the photos have
been erased off the Agency computer. Too bad, I would have liked to have seen
them.
Then I catch one of many local mini-buses going to the ‘Cemeterio’, a
district which has a large cemetery in the middle. From here, I catch another
mini-bus (servicio) which is going by not through the town of Tiwanaku, where
the most important archeological site in Bolivia is located. (As I start to
feel more comfortable in South America, I am tending to take high end buses and
taxis less, and just winging it with local transport: it is always more
interesting, and I am never sure how things will turn out but I know I will get
there eventually.) It starts raining as I get off the bus at the crossroads at
11:30, so I put on my poncho and wish I had brought a bit more in warm clothes
as I am not feeling great and it is windy as well as rainy. It is about 2 km to
the site, just east of the town and in the distance I can see a huge mound, 15
m high, and 150 m long, which is the site of a pyramid which has only started
to be excavated.
Two mountain carcaras try to figure out where this block should go in
the reconstruction of the pyramid
This site has been dated as being active from 600 BC to 1200 AD, and
once again it throws out any notion that early South Americans were not
sophisticated. Of course, to be fair, you do not need to leave elegant
buildings behind to be sophisticated. The sophistication of many
forest/desert/plains/Arctic peoples may reside more in their ability to survive
and live rich lives with few material goods and simple dwellings, and to have
more egalitarian societies. Unlike all
the Inca settlements I have visited, this pre-Inca site is not to be found high
on a mountain ridge, but rather on the open altiplano. Therefore, while there
are two museums adjacent which hold many artifacts from the site, most of the
best stuff was easily looted by the Incas or the Spanish. For instance, the sun
gate, which is a large carved rock entrance to the main football-field-sized
temple, is known to have been covered in gold. Besides the main temple and the
pyramid, there are a number of other buildings. The most impressive of these is
the underground temple which has been completely excavated. On the inside of
its walls are hundreds of carved stone heads sticking out from the walls. In
the centre are four carved stone monoliths. The largest of these, about 6 m
tall, has been moved into the centre of a large amphitheatre in one of the two
museums. Here, illuminated only by a series of spotlights which surround it, it
is indeed awe-inspiring. In the other museum are many arrowheads and stone
tools from the earlier periods, pots of many different kinds, shapes and
decorations, and, from 600 AD onward, bronze tools varying from ones of pure
copper, to copper and arsenic, to copper, arsenic and nickel, to copper and
tin, which is the hardest and most durable alloy. To me, one of the most
impressive aspects of these sites is how the enormous blocks making up at least
2 km of walls in all are all so beautifully squared with so much sophisticated
carving on them.
Underground temple in foreground; main temple entrance in background
Underground temple
Rock sculptures in the walls of the underground temple
Main temple in foreground; Pyramid in background
Afterward, as I look for a servicio heading to La Paz, I see Marie and
Nicolas, friends I have seen in both Torotoro and Sajama, waving from a large
tour bus heading back to La Paz.
The next morning (Friday), I pack up and make my way down to the main
square where I try to flag down a local servicio to get to the Bus Terminal,
only a km or two away. I do finally get one, that drops me off on the same
freeway I started on, but only a short steep climb from the Bus Terminal. The
bus prices to Puno vary greatly between different companies, depending on route
and bus quality. The middle-priced on would have got me there the quickest but
it is already sold out. The cheapest may be slower but leaves several hours
earlier than the most expensive so they arrive around the same time. I would
just as soon spend the time in the bus than in the terminal so I buy a cheap
ticket (B90 = $13 vs B240 for the
expensive one) and leave around 1:30. This bus takes the slow route crossing
the narrows in Lake Titicacaby ferry. (Titicaca means ‘Puma’s Rock’ in Aymara,
the main indigenous language of the altiplano, and refers to a Puma shaped rock on Isla del Sol, the largest
and most sacred island on the lake.) I am not at all disappointed to pass this
way again, as the lake, the crossing, and Copacabana are all very beautiful.
Our bus taking a
barge across the narrows in Lake Titicaca (Passengers took a ferry)
Arriving in Copacabana, even though I have bought a bus ticket to La
Paz, I must travel from here to the border on a servicio with another company
and then another servicio with another company to Puno once across the border.
So there is a scramble each time to find the company and the servicio as none
of the few of us following the same route were told any of this in advance.
(The joys of buying a cheap ticket.) Eventually, I get to Puno, my destination
for today: back in Peru but still on Lake Titicaca. Neither in Copacabana, nor
in transit after am I able to say much in Spanish. My ability to speak seems to
depend much on my mood and desire to communicate. It does make some sense as it
still takes effort for me to understand and to speak. One of my pet peeves in
Spanish is the equivalent of ‘this’ and ‘that’. Two words in English, 8 in
French (plus one slang abbreviation), and 15 in Spanish.
Copacabana
One of the passengers on our servicio to Puno starts playing his guitar
and singing part way through. His playing and singing are excellent and it is a
real pleasure to just listen. I am not sure where he is from but, like many
tourists these days, he is South American.
December to February is summer vacation time for most South American
students and that is when most working people take time off. Now I am seeing
many Argentinians, Brazilians, Peruvians, Bolivians, Colombians on their
holidays. The only downside for them here at this time, is that for much of
Bolivia and Peru, this is the rainy season. Even though it is summer, the rain
and clouds make it the coolest part of the year, especially at high altitude in
the Andes or the Altiplano which is where Lake Titicaca is located. Puno (S 15o
50.4’ W 70o 1.6’ Elev: 3631 m) therefore is no exception and it is both rainy and cold
here (especially since there is no heating anywhere I have stayed in my entire
trip.
I find the same hostal I stayed in last time through but inexplicably
the metal shutters are all closed over the front of the building. I assume they
are closed down but on knocking they open the door and let me in. They have
everything closed up because they have a space heater in the lobby and want to
keep the heat in. The place is clean and maintained and S/40 = $16. However,
the shower is cold in the morning (Saturday), the wifi only works near the
lobby, and the tv works but only picks up a few uninteresting local stations.
When I tell them about the water on the way out for the day, they promise to
turn up the heat the following morning for me which they do.
My reason for returning to Puno is to see the most interesting sight
here, the Floating Islands of the Uros people. On arrival Friday night, I book
a tour (S/25 = $10) for the next morning which includes a hostal pick-up, a
guide, and a boat ride out and back. Saturday morning, like Friday evening for
much of the bus ride, it is pouring rain (and cold) when I get up at 6. I go
out for breakfast and to get some cash (Nuevo Soles) and I am ready at 8:50 for
a pick-up except that it is only 7:50, due to the time change (Atlantic time in
Bolivia but Eastern time for Peru). So I read for a while and eventually I head
out by mini-van, and it has stopped raining. We arrive at the port and board a
boat. Before we take off, we are serenaded by a local musician playing guitar,
pan flute and singing, and again it is a real pleasure to hear some good music
although too little for my taste. (Could this be due to the fact that I have no
music with me?) After this, our guide introduces himself. There are four of the
20 or so passengers who do not speak Spanish so he speaks Spanish and butchers
an English translation. Surprising in a tourist town, but then he is one of the
worst tour guides I have seen (most continue to be excellent in my experience).
He tells us not to go outside as we travel, which I have already tried to do,
until we get out of sight of the Coast Guard. I appreciate the chance to get
out on the roof ten minutes later, but this is a typical Përuvian response to
authority and rules: it has its good and bad sides.
The Floating Islands are only 1-2 km out from Puno, still in Bahia Puno
(Puno Bay) and even with our very slow speed (undoubtedly mandated by the Coast
Guard and by the fact that the bay is very shallow in places), we get there in
20 minutes or so. We pass through channels in an enormous (square kilometers in
extent) bed of Totora (a kind of bulrush) and then arrive at the entrance to
the Floating Islands, where a man on a tiny floating island 5 m in diameter
with a little hut takes cash or a ticket from our guide (entry fee included in
our fee). This money is a small part of the tourism dollars which the Uros
receive.
Entry to the Islas Flotantes
The story of the Uros Floating Islands (piecing together what I was told
and reading between the lines). The Uros lived on the shores of Lake Titicaca
for a long time until the Incas started showing up in the 1300s. (Uros means
‘original people’ in Aymara.) At this time, they were already using boats made
of Totora stems lashed together in huge bundles. The aggression of the Incas
convinced the non war-like Uros to abandon the shore and live on their Totora
boats. After a few years of this, they finally built what amounted to rafts of
Totora and over time these evolved into floating islands where they still live
and now make their living from a combination of tourism and fishing.
Some of the
islands
The islands are floating in a fairly protected area of the large and
shallow bay surrounded by stands of Totora. They are two meters thick, three
quarters of which is below water. The bottom half is large clumps of Totora
roots tied together and, to the outside, tied to rocks dropped to the bottom
and/or to stakes pushed into the bottom, to keep them anchored. The roots apparently float free due to the
rains and rising water levels during the rainy season when they can collect
them. They only need to do this once every 30 years when an island must be
abandoned and a new one built. On the other hand, the upper meter is layer
after layer of cut Totora stems, which are added to every two weeks as they rot
quickly since the water constantly seeps up into them. The houses are simple
affairs (both round and square ones are common) raised even higher with more
stems, or now, with wooden platforms.
A middle-sized floating island
The 'presidente' of one of the islands shows how the foundation of an island is made with totora roots
As well as the islands and the houses, Totora stems are used to make
their unique boats, as well as benches to sit on, and basketry. Cooking is done
over a fire in a clay raised fireplace: pretty much everything on the islands
is highly combustible. Today, some of their boats now are more for the tourists
and consist of two boats lashed together with a large platform over both and in
between. I doubt that they did this before tourism entered the picture.
There are about 70 islands, each housing between 3 and 10 families and
they range in size from about 30-70 m in diameter. Besides visiting two
islands, we were able to get a ride on totora boats (S/10) and the Uros also
offered hot lunches and many many crafts for sale (some of which were obviously
purchased elsewhere to sell). I end up buying a cotton cushion cover with their
story embroidered on it by the woman who sold it to me. Another woman and I
visited her house just before. Not that I wanted it. It is just hard to say no
sometimes.
When we use the Totora boats (some of us) to travel to another island
500 m down the channel between beds of totora, we are directed to one of the
tourist catamarans. However I want to use one of the traditional boats and I
convince two others to join me. I ask to paddle it and am allowed to do so but
warned not to drop the (heavy) paddle with the blade nailed on. The Uros use a
back and forth feathered motion from the stern of the boat, which I get the
hang of, but clearly it would take a bit of time to get efficient at it. While
traveling, our boatman confides in me that inside the large bundles of totora
of the boat, they now use cores of large plastic pop bottles, which obviously
makes it faster to build and more buoyant. They also put in a layer of plastic
sheeting which waterproofs much of the
boat, extending its life from 6 months to about 2 years. (The houses also need
to be rebuilt every year or so. Another nod to modernity is that there is a
floating school of modern materials in their community and the teachers commute
out daily from Puno. As well as the Totora boats, I also see modern motor
boats. Some of the Uros also live on some of the natural islands and practice
their traditional lifestyles without the mixed blessing of tourism.
They are fisherman too, as well as hunters of waterfowl: both ducks and
another bird which is obviously related to our American coot. I have never
hunted coots (nor do the Oji-Cree hunt them where I have lived in the north but
one of the Uros I spoke to insisted that they are very good to eat. I will have
to bring home a few coots next hunting season and find out if he is right. They
mostly fish for some of the 14 native species of fish: all of which are very
small. They showed us some recently caught ones that look like a species of
perch. The only big fish in the lake are a kind of trout introduced from the US
and another very large fish introduced from Argentina.
I do not take the mini-van back as I want to walk through town, see
their market, and grab some lunch. That evening in town, there is a huge racket
of music and dance practice in the streets. They are practicing for a very big
festival next month: the day of their patron saint, and a big weekend of dance
competition, music and fireworks. It seems that there is some kind of major
carnival or celebration everywhere in South America in February. I will be in
Ecuador and am looking forward to this.
The next morning (Sunday) I am
not in a big hurry to go as it is only 6 hours to Cusco and it is again pouring
rain early in the morning. I finally
walk down to the main square at 8:45 and get a moto-taxi to the Bus Terminal
(S/3 = $1.20; was S/6 coming in by regular taxi). I buy a ticket for a 9:30
bus. Fifteen minutes before I go out to wait by the platform and am surprised
that there is only one woman there waiting. We chat and I find out that Andrea
is on a month vacation from Paraguay, leaving her young daughter with her
parents. She is the first person I have ever met from that country. She is 30
and works for the government helping victims of the dictatorship which lasted
until 1989. However, like Canada, there has been a recent disturbing shift to
the right aided by money from large corporations. As well as Spanish, Andrea
speaks Guarani (the main indigenous language and her first language) as do 90%
of Paraguayans, a fact that she and most of her countrymen are very proud of.
She also speaks Portuguese: makes sense for a small country on the Brazilian
border. She and I talked most of the way: I found her easy to talk to and very
interesting.
As we cover the Peruvian countryside I had left 2.5 months before I
notice that the rainy season has greened up the mountains considerably and that
the corn crops which were tiny when I left are now nearing maturity. I am happy
to be back in Peru, the country in my travels where I have felt most at home.
After I help Andrea find a place to stay, I make my way to my old
hostal, where I wait with Mary-Lou for Raquel (her sister who runs the hostal
operation) to arrive. It is good to see her and good for me to see that I can
understand her a lot better now. I shower and head out to spend the evening
with Andrea. The weather is really pleasant for a change and so is the company.
I bid her farewell as she is meeting a friend from Spain the next day and
traveling to Machu Picchu. Even though it was a brief encounter I will miss
her. Now I am ready to spend some more time writing.
