Yesterday was a day spent in a bus from Cusco to Puno in Lake Titikaka. Once we arrived in Puno we all headed to the local market to get some goodies for our host families in Luquina Chico where we will be spending the night.
Today the day started early by taking bike taxi to the port where we got into our veeeeeery slow boat.
Our first stop was in the islands of Uros in lake titicaca.
These islands are man made and they explained to us how they actually make the island. One island can last up to 30 years and a couple of families live in it. They put several layers of roots and grassy plants to make it float. The people living there have to put a layer of grass every month, and during the rainy season once a week for it to keep floating.
To be honest I don't really buy into the idea that people actually live there! I think many of us got the feeling that it was all part of the tourist industry and the people put on a show for us!
Once they saw our boat approaching they started getting all their souvenirs out to sell to us.
Anyway, the island was quite the experience and the women took us to their house and dressed us up in traditional wear. Then, I felt as if they pushed the stuff they make for us to buy.
Mid afternoon we left Taquiles island and headed towards Luquina Chico, where we had our homestay.
We were received by a "band" and walked to the local school for a soccer match.
At the beginning I thought it was going to be a soccer match playing with the local people but it turned out to be matches between the different g adventures tours that were doing a home stay. This also felt like a waste of time, only 6 people in our whole group were needed for the soccer game so the rest of us just sat there and watched. The view of lake Titicaca during sunset was very beautiful and I enjoyed looking at the kids.
By 6pm we were freezing and wanted to go but they had a surprise for us! Our host families showed up with Peruvian traditional wear and made us all wear it. Then, the locals showed us how to dance so all the tourists had to imitate the folkloric dances. It was a lot of fun!
Once we were done with our performances we each went with our host family for the night.
I was very impressed with the accommodation! Each family had a room for us, with well made beds AND... PROPER bathrooms!!! (No water to flush but a bucket full of water to dump in toilet after use!) I was expecting something like I had in Laos, dirt floor, mosquito net over our heads, and a hole in the ground as the potty!
My host family consisted of Delfin, the dad, Juana, the mom, and two kids: Freddys (8) and Aldo (23 months).
In Lake Titicaca people speak Spanish and Aymara so I was glad I could communicate with them. I shared the homestay family with Mia so I tried to translate as much as I could from our conversation. The family, as expected, live very modestly (hope that's a word!) and I don't really know how sanitary everything is in there but I tried not to think about that.
Juana prepared for us a tasty semola soup with vegetables and for the main course we had rice and potatoes.
While Juana was preparing dinner we gave them the gifts we had brought (food for the family) and gave the kids balls and jump ropes. Freddys and Aldo really enjoyed the gifts and started playing with them.
To me it's kind of hard to see people living under "poor" conditions; once again it makes me realize how lucky I am to have everything that I have. At the same time I also think that these people are happy living their life by the lake, they are lucky to receive tourists and have land to work on and animals that provide them food. Talking with Delfin he asked about our profession and he added "my profession is farmer and to take care of tourists" and he went on about talking about receiving tourist and how good it is for their economy, it's an extra source of income and they enjoy having them visit. He mentioned that he has been getting tourists already for six years!!
So far... Our homestay (or home state as Ricardo calls it) has been great!
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