BT – Lake Titicaca – Taquile

With my rain jacket packed away in my missing luggage I have to confess I was a little concerned about the ominous clouds that loomed over Lake Titicaca as we set off on our day tour from Puno.

Lake Titicaca is generally regarded as the highest navigable lake in the world (where “navigable” means more than just little boats), and it is a huge lake: about an eighth the size of Tasmania. The surrounding countryside has terraced hillsides and views to distant peaks … and Bolivia was “up that way”.

Our first stop for the day was Taquile (S 15°46.9′ W 69°40.7′), which has a population of over 2000 Quechua-speaking Taquileños, made up of seven small communities scattered across the 5.5 square kilometre island. The seemingly unforgiving soil has been terraced for farming, sheep and cattle are kept, and, somewhat bizarrely for this Tasmanian, there were lots of Tasmanian blue gums, which, we later realised, are actually quite prevalent in the Peruvian Andes and are a source of fuel and building materials. We learned how the whole island community has effected self-governance and controls the way it allows and benefits from tourism. We took it easy walking along the island’s path (initially uphill), with our guide stopping frequently to inform us about the culture and to let us recover from our exertions at this high altitude of about 3950m.

Taquile is famous for its textile culture, which is world heritage listed. The women spin and weave, including broad belts in intricate patterns that are created for their husbands. We were shown some of the weaving process, as well as the end results, and — perhaps only naturally — had a chance to purchase some artefacts (and I did, because there was some very nice stuff and because I had enjoyed the visit and it seemed an appropriate response).

For those with certain assumptions about the distribution of textile labour amongst the genders, the unusual thing about Taquile is that knitting is carried out by males. Each man on the island knits his hat to attract a partner and then the belt that is woven for him by his wife includes some of her hair.

We were treated to the obligatory pan pipes and drums as part of the cultural experience.

As we made our way down the stone-paved path to our tour boat we encountered the leaders of two of the towns, characterised by the dark hats that indicate their elected roles.

It started to rain just as I got back to the boat; I just had to hope that it would ease off again for the afternoon’s explorations.