Peng

went up early in the morning, revisited the ruins i saw yesterday, trying to salvage a picture or two.  (camera was out of battery yesterday)

 

coming down the mountain, meant to say goodbye to Livia and the Elysseo family, ran into the special "haircut ceromony"  for the 4 year old Silverio.  Livia apparently knew the procedures well ´cos she seems very well rehearsed and brought with her lots of gifts from Puno.  based on my limited understaning of what Elyseo tryied to communicate to me, they decided to name Livia the boy´s god mother and me his god father... :P

 

so i also had the honor of cutting the boy´s hair for the first time ever since he was born!

 

the whole procedure is extremely complicated and ceromonial from an outsider´s view:

 

1, a stool is set in the middle of the courtyard and the boy was made sitting on it

2, the family unwrapped a blanket, in which there are a bowl of maize and lots of coca leaves.  every guest selects three best shaped leaves and put them faced up in the bowl of maize.  the most important figure, the god mother or Livia, then distributed the reamining coca leaves to the guests (my leaves are now folded in the Lonely Planet book)

3, god mother starts to cut the boy´s hair, and carefully places the cut hair in the bowl of maize and leaves

4, she then hands the cissors to the god father (me!) and left some money as gift int he maize bowl

5, i cut hair (very clumsily), and left some money as gilft..

6, other relatives took turn to cut hair and left gifts, until the boy is in a semi bald status

7, cocacola drinking (yes, no kidding): godmother livia served the first glass of coke to the ground, and then served coke to all the guests.  i being the god father had the honor of drining the first glass..

8, people unwrapped other gifts for the boy

9, boy´s father gave livia a handwoven bag as gift and me a handwoven cap...  (regretted i bought one yesterday :)  and god mother and god father took pictures with the family

10, fish soup drinking.  this turned out limit pushing for livia: the poor girl suffered from stomach problem starting from yesterday, and was forced to eat two big pancakes in the morning and felt worse since then, and now forced to bottom up the soup of some strange fish species and other vetetables...  well, guess there is a hefty price to be a good god mother..

 

during the ceromony, i learned from Elyseo that the boy´s mother died giving birth to him, and the village people have tried everything they can since then to make the child feel he does not lack a family.  unprepared as i was, very glad that i did my part and maybe, made father and son feel some strangers from other parts of the world cared.  for one day, i hoped i and livia did our parts as being the special gifts God sent to the four year old Silverio Flores Huatta at Isla of Taquile.

 

from Isla Amantani, my tour group hopped to Isla de Tqauile on christmas eve.  other people left around noon time, but i decided to stay over night.  the difference between the island with and without tourists are just unbelievable.  while the two or three groups left the island, the isalnd people returned to their normal life immediately: no souvenier stands to be seen, men started knitting and women started spinning the wools...i sort of started to feel the island belongs to all myself on the chrismas eve (although the later rendveous with the italian girl Livia proved there is another romantic soul)

 

when the island returned to its peace, i took a walk up the mountains to see the stone ruins, which were abundant.  on the way to the top i passed by ancient huge stone with human (god) faces carved on it, and temples wherel people worshiped their god. from the sign along the road, i gathered the ruin or the temple was called Mulsinapata.  camera was out of battery, but just sitting among the ruins by the great Titicaca finished the afternoon well for me.

 

on my way back to the village, biggest concern was where to have a proper christmad dinner..didnt really want to eat with the family i am staying with since a chritmas dinner without conversation didnt sound too appealing to me.  well, on the cobbled stone street i met the other solo traveller livia, four eggs in hand, buying groceries with the Elyseo family she is staying with.  soon we decided i would join them, although condition is i would have to help cooking..

 

Elyseo family proved very fun people, although they made me grind maize to make the soup and livia peel potatos for the main dish.  well, considering i havent really cooked for a year in new york, this didnt sound too bad an idea to get teed up for xmas dinner.. i ended up grinding the maize twice to make the finest flour for the soup (almost tilted Elyseo´s kitchen table becasue i ground too hard.. joked with him that he should think about buying a donkey..)

 

Livia works for an organic food company back in Rome, italy when she is not travlling, so i guess this dinner fits her perfectly.  the maize and potatos were grown just outside of the family house... in the middle of dinner, the family started to giggle, consuing the hell out of me.  soon i got it: they ran out of muna leaves for tea.  Elyseo went out wiht a torch light and soon returned with a handful of leaves from the mountain, making our dinner even more natural and organic :)

 

grind your maize and peel your potatos before the meal, this is definitely going to me one of my most memorable christmas dinner.

Lake titicaca is the reason why i took so many bus rides, and it proved worth while of every single mintue i spent on the bus.  the immense lake at peru and bolivia border is breathtakingly beautiful.

 

well, jumping right off the bus, i signed up for a two day boat tour leaving in the next hour.  put the big backpack at the tour guy's office, and later i would feel very lucky that i took the headlamp with me (almost saved my life at isla amantani)..

 

first stop was the "floating island", where islanders built their inhabitats out of reeds on the water.. took a lot of colorful pictures here..

 

spent the rest of the day and night on Isla of Amantani.  there are a couple of histocral ruins at the top of the mountain.  the sunset among the ancient ruins was simply outstanding.  in order to take as many pictures as possible, i came down the mountain in dark. despite the headlamp, i found that i couldnt figure out the way to the family where i am staying with...  luckily the family expected i would ran lost and was looking for me in the mountains...  altho we cant communicate, my apprciation to the good hearted family was beyond language, cos otherwise i would probably have to spend the night in the mountains at below zero celcius...

 

the night was featured by they dress me up in local costumes to join the Fiesta, sorf of like "ji ti wu" with island people...

 

pictures on this little island incude the food they treated me and the great sunset.. and of course my party gear that they forced me in!

-jotted down on notebook-

 

had a pretty relaxing morning after the splitting headacke eased.  was pretty much hanging out in Putre and read the kite runner.  took a couple of pictures of the hostel i stayed in.  to my surprise, the little hostel has warm shower, and this turned out to be the only i have in the next 4 days...

 

endeless bus rides started in noon time, but i managed to save a lot of time out of these bus rides.  from putre to arica, i jumped on a "collectivo" setting out to Tacna, peru right away,  the small car got 5 passengers cramped in it besides the driver.  almost no time lost at Tacna, the local taxi driver did a pretty good job driving me around to find the next long distance bus leaving for Puno, where lake titicaca is.

 

still cant believe i covered putre to arica to tacna and to puno in one day without understanding any spanish!  at Chilean and Peru border, i would probably have been kicked back to chile if a new zealand boy didnt help me out.  his spanish is pretty broken, but managed to understand that the border official was questioning me that my peruvian visa didnt have the issuance date on it.  well, how the hell would i know??  dont know if the official understood the boys explanaiton for me, or he just got bored and let me pass...

 

next miracle would be going to the right bus terminal at Tacna and find out which bus to take to Puno.  body lanaguage and my little phrase book proved useful.  in the next 12 hours of bus ride, i was constantly awoken fearing that i may have missed the stop...  had to constantly remind the person sitting next to me that i need to get off at Puno, appeared very much like an idiot, but i got off at the right stop..

Putre, the small town i am at now, is at 3500 meters high.  from here, i visited couple of other places at 4500 meters high.  i knew it is going to be bad, but didnt know it is that bad, esp considering i have been tortured before by the nortorious high altitude at mt everest base camp..  have to keep drinking coca leaf tea to hopefully ease the headache a bit

 

it was worth it though.  today´s expedition was more like revisiting lord of the rings... have to cross endless swamp to see the lakes.  crap i still cant upload pictures!

 

cant write long. hope this coca leaf thing will work sooner.

have been reading a book that pearson pendergrass lent me for the road, "the kite runner" by Kahed Hosseni.  it is a book staged in afgannistan about the growing up of two boys, and the pain, love, honor, and respect along the way.  (http://www.khaledhosseini.com/)

 

pearson had urged me to read this book for a long time, and good thing about the transit today is i was able to finish most of it.  havent been touched by a book for a while, esp. when Hassen´s voice of "for you, a thousand times over" kept surfacing in the young Amir´s mind and finally taught him to be a real adult at 38 years old.  guess Hosseni wanted to say it takes more pain for people to grow up, esp. for the seven eighth part of the iceberg that is under the water.

 

book reading made today´s trip a lot shorter, which takes three legs of flight, arguing with Lan Chile ticket offices about change of flight, and finally getting into Arica of Chile where almost nobody speaks english.  yet again shocked by what i saw at the bustling hustling bus station.  it is just like the so many other bus terminals  i used to be so famliar with when traveling in xin jiang.  hundres of people with luggages spread out and friendly drivers trying to pull you into their bus.  by some miracle and the help of a taxi driver i got a ticket that will set me off to Putre tomorrow morning, to see the volcanos and lakes at 4000 meters high.  this smaill town i am in right now, arica, has a population about 200k with landscaple unlike any other places i saw.  sort of like desert and sea line combined.  putre that i am gong to visit tomorrow is a 2000 population Aymara village surrounded by ancient stone faced terrace on which local farmers grow alfalfa and oregano.  the place starts at 3500 meters high and is supposed to be famous for the white stone adobe houses.  after departing from the metropolitan Rio at the break of the day, the painful part of the journey started, yet making me feel ever more alive.

 

btw i regained cell phone connection today, sadly.  first advice that a colleague gave me, after receiving safety report eamil, was, drink as much pisco as you can, and put your god-damned berry away, that is yelling "rob me."  well that made me fell warm in this chlly highland night, with or without pisco (a chle|peru alchoholic drink that i am yet to taste.)