{"id":85,"date":"2010-08-25T00:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/?p=85"},"modified":"2017-02-17T13:17:28","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T12:17:28","slug":"peru-trip-7-uros-isles-and-chucuito-lake-titicaca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/peru-trip-7-uros-isles-and-chucuito-lake-titicaca\/","title":{"rendered":"Peru Trip #7 – Uros Isles and Chucuito, Lake Titicaca"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Reeds<\/a>
\nTwo fascinating trips today: to the floating Uros islands, and to the Aymara\/Inca fertility temple at Chucuito. The Uros islanders, although their own language is lost now, and they have absorbed some of the physical characteristics of the Aymara as well as their language, are nonetheless still distinguishable by their short, squat bodies, their barrel chests with powerful hearts and lungs, and their ‘black blood’ – in truth just a little darker, but proven to have a higher haemoglobin content than sea-level dwelling people like me – and probably you. These people have been here a very long time, and have completely adapted to this environment. The Pukara people (more on them tomorrow) were the first recognisable ‘culture’ or ‘civilisation’ here, between 200 and 600CE, and they were gradually displaced by the Tihuanaco, who were then forcibly conquered by the Aymara, who were in their turn
\nconquered by the Inca, and lastly, in the 1530s, by the Spanish. The
\nUros Islanders, therefore, have been there a long time.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"One<\/p>\n

\"Me
\nThis was my morning trip, and on my way back I enjoyed the views of the lake, and took a little oxygen on board<\/p>\n

The Uros Islanders – only a few hundred of them now live there on the\u00a0islands still – clearly exist mainly on the income from tourists, above\u00a0and beyond their traditional subsistence existence making their land,\u00a0their huts, their fires, and their soup out of the reeds in the lake.\u00a0My guide was very informative, but it was clear enough to the eye that\u00a0much of their lives are now geared toward the tourists. It was also\u00a0clear, during these years of world economic turmoil, that the tourist\u00a0trade has really suffered. The two arms of the village, north and south,\u00a0have been taking it in turns, this year, to receive tourists, each
\nmorning. In a normal year, both arms receive tourists all day. So I
\ndecided that if I was going to spend my tourist dollars on textiles and
\nreed figures anywhere in Peru, then it was going to be here, rather than
\na shop in Lima or Cuzco. I spent about \u00a365 and the couple were clearly
\ndelighted – she gave me a hug and kiss in a quite spontaneous gesture.
\nIt was somewhere between gratifying and embarrassing – still not sure
\nquite where. So now I have a delightful, ‘primitive’ Andean tapestry
\ndepicting Pacha Mama and Pacha Tata (Father Earth), along with a puma, a\u00a0reed boat, and the ubiquitous Tumi knife with which the sacrifices were
\nmade. This was woven by the woman who kissed me. I also have a small
\nreplica reed boat, made by her husband. Lastly, I have one of those big
\nseed pod maracas, with a scratchboard, covered with some carving, which
\nlooks to me rather mass produced, but never mind. These items will
\nretain both a memory of meeting their makers, on their island, and the
\nsort of charitable glow to make any tourist feel his conscience is
\nclear.<\/p>\n

After some soup and a midday sleep back at the hotel, my guide came to
\ncollect me again and we set off to Chucuito, a tiny but charming village
\nfurther down the coast toward Bolivia, where there was an Aymara\/Inca
\nfertility temple. Much of it destroyed by the Spanish, of course, who
\nused the phallic totems to tie their horses in the yards of their
\ncolonial houses around the lake, until in the last decade or so the
\nlocal authorities have gradually repatriated them all and set them up
\nagain inside the temple. There is a strange and imposing looking hotel
\nin front of the temple, where mystical but infertile tourists come from
\nall over the world to take part in ceremonies, led by the hotelier, at
\nthe temple, apparently with some success, though my guide reckons its
\nall psychological. The signs of recent libations on the main phallic
\naltar are clear enough.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two fascinating trips today: to the floating Uros islands, and to the Aymara\/Inca fertility temple at Chucuito. The Uros islanders, although their own language is lost now, and they have absorbed some of the physical characteristics of the Aymara as well as their language, are nonetheless still distinguishable by their short, squat bodies, their barrel … Continue reading “Peru Trip #7 – Uros Isles and Chucuito, Lake Titicaca”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaeology","category-journeyman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1314,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/1314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}