Lago Titicaca and Isla del Sol

Buenas dias! Como esta?

As I said in the last entry, we are getting to see all kinds of Incan and pre-Incan ruins and learn about these ancient cultures. We recently spent three days walking and camping on Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun), which is lies on the enormous Lago Titicaca (Lake Titicaca). Lago Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, and at over 3800 meters it is one of the highest navigable lakes in the world. It lies along the borders of both Peru and Bolivia and is so vast that looking out over it you could imagine you're at the ocean.

The lake held much significance for the Incan and pre-Incan Aymara and Quechua cultures, whose descendents still live in the region. The name Titicaca comes from Aymara and Quechua words meaning ¨Puma Rock¨, perhaps because the island´s shape resembles a puma. Sacrifices to the lake were often made to ensure safety in sailing and good harvests. Isla del Sol is also very culturally significant. The Incans believed that it is the birthplace of their Sun God, whom they highly worshipped, and indigenous people today still consider the island to be a sacred place.

One can find many ruins of ancient structures on the island. This site, called Chincana, was built by pre-Incan people and is also called the Laberinto, or Labyrinth, for its complex network of rooms.

The Ruta Sagrada, or Sacred Route, follows a high ridge from one end of the island to the other and leads you past ruins and beautiful views of the island and Lago Titicaca. It was built hundreds of years ago and is still maintained by the islands inhabitants.

The people living on Isla del Sol are very friendly and we enjoyed chatting with them and sharing greetings as we passed each other on the island's footpaths. Most of them speak Spanish, but occasionally we had the treat of overhearing the native Quechua language being spoken as well! There are no vehicles on the island so walking is the main means of transportation. People make their living from farming, fishing, and the growing tourism to the island. All over the island are terraces where wheat, oats, corn, fava beans and other crops are grown.

They also raise livestock, including sheep, pigs, llamas and mules, and we passed many people herding their animals to and from grazing lands.

I have to say that Isla del Sol is one of my favorite spots in Bolivia. The incredible landscape, the rich traditional culture and friendly people made it a very memorable experience!

El Camino Choro

Buenas Tardes! Good afternoon!

It had been quite a while since we'd been out on a trek so we finally hit the trail again after a two month break. We just finished the Choro Trek, or Camino Choro. Camino means "way" or "path" and Choro is the name of a small settlement which lies along the trek. This path dates back hundreds of years to Incan and even pre-Incan times. It was, and still is, used as a trading and transport route for people travelling from the high mountains of La Paz down into the Yungas jungle region. This is me on the first day of the trek, climbing up to a pass at over 14,000 feet.

The Incans were the native people encountered by the Spanish when they first arrived in the Andes Mountains of South America in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Incans had a vast and complex civilization stretching from Ecuador down through Peru and into Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. They built amazing structures, including roads, temples, houses, irrigation systems and agricultural terraces, usually out of stone and precious metals, like gold and silver. Though the Spanish took much of the precious metals, one can still see the remains of Incan stone work throughout Peru, Bolivia and Northern Argentina.

The Camino Choro is a wonderful example of pre-Hispanic engineering (pre-Hispanic refers to the time before Spanish arrival) . It was actually built by people pre-dating the Incan empire. They cut the path out of the steep mountainsides by hand and paved it with stones. The Incas eventually widened it and expanded the paving, and while walking on the Camino Choro today one can still see this paving, still preserved after centuries of use!

Because the Camino Choro is an ancient transport route, you can find the ruins of Incan structures along the way. This was a rest stop for travellers coming over the high mountain pass where they could stay for the night and prepare for the next days' long walk. You can see the path here as it heads past the ruins and off into the distance.

We walked 42 kilometers (about 28 miles) of the path over four days and saw everything from barren, high mountain peaks to lush and humid jungle. Along the way we passed through small hamlets and sometimes solitary huts where people often live much like they did in Incan times. Some of these are two days walk from any town or city! Families can live on the nearly vertical hillside, carving out small flat areas by hand and planting crops, like corn, yucca and potatoes, on the very steep slopes. These women are harvesting yucca and potatoes, a staple of their diets.

One night we camped on this small, level area where a family tends banana plants, which you can see in the left of the picture. It is a jungle environment here so the trees grow very large. The fruits support the family's diet and help them earn money from the sale of the bananas, or platanos.
Another important part of the diet and economy of rural Bolivian life is the meat and wool from llama and alpaca. At the start of the trek we saw a group of people getting their llama herd ready for the walk down into the jungle and the towns below. Perhaps they were transporting them back home from higher grazing grounds, or taking them down for sale to the communities. Whatever the reason, they look ready for the long journey ahead!

In the coming weeks we hope to see more ruins of Incan civilizations and visit sites important to Incan history and culture. If you haven't learned about the Incans yet in school, I suggest you do a little research on your own! They had a fascinating culture and it is amazing what they could accomplish with minimal technology. Ask your teacher where you might be able to find information about the Incans in books or on the internet.

Farming in Santa Cruz

Hola a todos!

Nathan and I have just returned from spending three weeks on a farm near Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We did this as part of a program that connects people who want to work on organic farms with organic farmers around the world. In exchange for help on the farm we got to stay with a family and spend time getting to know them and their friends. We stayed at a small family farm called Rancho Montana near a village about 14 hours east of La Paz.

This time of year, the autumn, is the beginning of the dry season. During the summer there is a lot of rain and it is quite hot, usually in the 90's. Autumn and winter, however are still quite hot but the sun is a little less intense and there is much less rain. For this reason they grow their vegetables at Rancho Montana in the winter. They grow many of the same things we would at home, like tomatoes, beans, squash and lettuce, but with such a warm climate they can grow all kinds of other things that we cannot.

On the farm you can find oranges (naranjas), lemons (limones), guava, papayas, coconut (coco), passion fruit (maracuyá) and lots of other fruits growing. Everyday at lunch we would drink fresh juices made from pureed fruits from the farm--delicious! This is a papaya tree. The green fruits you see will turn yellowy orange and fall to the ground when they're ripe and ready to eat.

Maracuyá, or passion fruits, grow on vines like this and also turn yellow and fall to the ground when ripe. Sweet, juicy and wonderful!

Another very sweet treat is sugar cane, or caña de azúcar. Sugar cane is widely grown in this area and this is the harvest season. After the sugar cane stalks are cut from the fields they are pressed for juice. Raw sugar is crystallized from this juice and then bleached and refined to make the table sugar we are familiar with. This process takes place in large factories now, but the old fashioned way to extract the juice from the caña, or sugar cane stalks, is with a press like this one. Caña is placed in the middle barrel and the long handle is turned, causing a press to squeeze juice from the caña. It's a lot like an apple cider press, actually. You can drink the fresh cane juice, or jugo de caña, and it is YUMMY! To me it tastes a little like brown sugar.

Other things you can find growing at Rancho Montana are cinnamon (which is actually the dried bark of a tree), cloves, paprika and other herbs, palm trees and yucca (a tuber kind of like a potato). Besides the plants there are some pretty interesting animals, too. Cows, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks and even a couple peacocks roam the farm. A few wild animals paid us visits, too. When digging the garden one day we found a rattlesnake (cascabel), three tarantulas and a baby red tailed boa constrictor! We also saw iguanas and large frogs, parrots, tucans and lots of other very colorful and interesting birds. This cascabel was spotted one evening in the garden.

Another day this parrot came to the house to say hello and get a snack! Can you imagine having a farm or a garden where you can find all these exotic fruits and spices and animals? It's pretty different from home!