Lake Titicaca: A High Altitude Lake Adventure

Hi Class!
There were two special things we did around Lake Titicaca that I want to tell you about. First we did a great hike around Isle del Sol which was on the Bolivia side. There were cool pre-Inca ruins to explore and beautiful views. We were really out of breath because it was lots of climbing and there was not much oxygen in the air.







The second cool thing we did around Lake Titicaca was a reed island home stay on the Peru side.

We stayed with a family on a floating island made of reeds. This is a picture of them.



Families have been living in these man made reed islands for hundreds and hundreds of years on Lake Titicaca. There were about 85 islands all pretty close together and each island had a few families living on it. Once a family has children that turn around 8 years old, they cut off part of the floating island and then start their own little island by building it out of reeds. These families make everything out of the reeds. Because they rely on the reeds so much, they respect the reeds. When they cut the reeds down they do not cut them from the very bottom of the plant so that they grow back.

The houses were made of reeds, they made their boats out of reeds (it takes 3 men 1 and a half months to build a reed boat and these boats last 1 and a half years), they make crafts out of reeds, our beds were made of reeds, they use the reeds for food and for fuel.

Each week the families would add brand new reeds across the island. It felt like walking on a soft squishy bed everywhere we went.

Lots of people do not brush their teeth on these islands because they can chew on the peeled reeds and it is a natural way to clean their teeth.




During the rainy season, the lake raises 1 meter and that is when you can really feel the islands floating around.

There were so many little children on these islands and my family was worried about these children falling in the water and drowning. We asked the parents about this and they told us that all the kids on these islands learn to swim when they are 4 years old.

All the children in these islands used to go to school in Puno, which is the closest city to the islands on the shore. The kids used to paddle to the school all by themselves. A little while ago, these island communities started their own island schools and they now have a preschool, 2 kindergardens, and 1 school. We saw parents taking turns picking up kids in their boats and taking them to school in the morning.



At night the island was pretty cold. The family we stayed with would bring us all hot water bottles to snuggle up with in bed. They did not have any heaters in their homes but they did use solar panels for some power.

One of my favourite things to do is fish. We went out with the family to check their fishing nets. I helped the husband. In 10 minutes we caught about 40 small fish called Kingfish. 

When we stay with families we need to eat what they give us to eat. The family served us Trout one night. I had never eaten Trout before but I really liked it.

Isn't it amazing how these people live? I can't imagine living like this but was really fun to have the chance to try it out for a while.

If you have any questions, you can sent them to me through my Mom's email address at lanaburnstad@gmail.com

See you in January! I heard that you guys just got lots of snow!

Levi

Back in Argentina

We just left Paraguay and are spending a week in Northern Argentina before going into Bolivia. 

We had an awesome day today. We rented a car so that we could get to Quilmes. Quilmes is this indiginous Andean fortress that is Argentina´s most extensive preserved ruin. It dates from 1000 AD and there were 5000 people who lived there. We spent a full day hiking up in the scorching hot heat. I did not even have a drop of water. We saw a bunch of old houses built on the side of the mountain that were made of a bunch of piled up rocks. It was amazing that people could live like that because there was no river there and the nearest one we could find was about 20 kilometers away. There must have been some water source for them there 1000 years ago but we could not find it. Look at these awesome pictures.

 

  

The other crazy thing that we saw this week was a museum called Museo de Argueologia de Alta Montana. This museum was all about 3 mummies that were found by archeologists a couple of years ago. These were children that were sacrificed for the gods by their families and community. I think it was supposed to be special to be chosen to be sacrificed. One was 15,one was10 and one was 6. They were dressed in ceremonial clothes and their hair was done fancy. They were given corn alcohol to fall asleep and then they were buried alive at the top of this volcano. The climate of the volcano kept their bodies and their clothes perfectly preserved. We could see their hair and their skin and even their eyelashes. I wish I could show you pictures that we took, but we were not allowed to take any. We found these ones to show you on the internet though.

By the way, did you know that there is no ´W´ in the Spanish language?

Send me some questions if you have any. I miss everyone back home.

Levi