In case you're wondering what happened with the blogger suddenly turning into Adie, I'm still here! He's probably just jealous of me having so many stories to share, so he has to throw in his own too. :)
I have to say, I was a little bit skeptical of the trip to the island before going, because anything called a "village stay" makes me raise my eyebrows a little. It just sounds a bit romanticized, like going to escape the hectic city life and see what the "villagers" do in the countryside.
However, I am happy to say that I had a lovely time with a very welcoming family on the Isla. I lived with a young pair of newlyweds, Yhovana y Carlos, and Carlos' mother, Inocencia, an impressive lady of 75 years.
My experience was fairly unique because both Carlos and Yhovana have spent a number of years living in La Paz and/or Cochabamba and have only recently returned to live more or less full time on the island. Carlos is a builder, and he has built them a new house to live in:
Yhovana is finishing her degree in education this December and plans to teach in the school soon. She is also pregnant with their first child!
I learned a lot about Aymara culture (the indigenous group of the region), their agricultural practices, and what day-to-day life is like on the island. We spent one full day working in the fields, preparing a plot that has been fallow for seven years for planting.
Looking down at the group of family members working together to break up the thick clods of soil before planting.
The cycle of rotation is as follows:
Year one: potatoes
Year two: oka - a sweet, longer tuber, similar to a potato
Year three: fava beans
Year four: barley
Years five - eleven: fallow
Some plots are planted with corn instead but that depends on the choice of the farmer.
Everyone has multiple plots that are scattered around the island. The community rotates crops together, so one area containing multiple people's plots is potatoes, another area fava, et cetera.
Exploring the section of island in which we were working on a break. My family kept demanding that I rest and, with the altitude I did need it, but I couldn´t help but feel week when I was working with a pregnant woman and a 75-year-old! I managed to keep up with them relatively well for most of the day at least.
The next day was special because it was a certain phase of the moon in which, according to Aymara wisdom, it is ill-advised to work in the fields. There are actually a number of agricultural practices here that remind me of biodynamic philosophies! So, we got to sleep in, which for me, amazingly, meant until nearly 10am! I couldn´t believe how tired I was after every activity that we undertook. I guess that´s what you get at 13,000 feet!
Once I was awake, we commenced to eat, and hardly stopped for the next several hours! I had mentioned that I would like to try the fish of the lake, so Yhovana and Carlos went out early to buy fresh fish from the shore. First there was a normal breakfast, bread and tea, followed soon after by the sajra hora - a midmorning meal - of ispi, the smallest fish in the lake:
I helped to squish out the guts of each one before they were fried in oil and salt. Delicious and filling, served with chuño, the classic freeze-dehydrated potato of the altiplano.
Immediately after finishing a massive plateful of ispi, Carlos and I commenced to gather wood (nonnative eucalyptus) and build a fire in the special stone oven that many families have:
Basically, you stoke the fire inside until the stones turn black, then destroy the structure, build layers of food and stones alternately, then cover the pile with straw and blankets. We first filled the area with potatoes and oka:
Then, after a layer of stones, laid down the pieces of trucha (trout) wrapped in wet paper:
It reminded me a bit of wrapping up my yogurt in lots of blankets to keep it warm for incubation overnight!
After thirty minutes, we uncovered the whole pile and voila, everything was cooked! The fish had been rubbed with a sauce of garlic and ají, a spicy pepper, and was deliciously moist and tender.
Inocencia grinding the garlic and ají with stones that function somewhat like a mortar and pestle.
Getting to know the trucha before it was gutted and sliced!
After the third meal of the day, I was feeling rather stuffed, but Carlos had offered to take me to the ruins on the north end of the island, and I'm never one to turn down a hike! So we set off up the hill, me huffing and puffing and Carlos dragging his feet to not get too far ahead! The hike was gorgeous, with views of the lake, Peru, and the Cordillera Real:
After an hour or so of walking, we arrived at the ruins. I don't know that much about their history, but I think they are from the era of the Incas. The people were even shorter back then!
Trying to stand in the tallest doorway that I found.
Peru in the background!
After exploring the various rooms - pretty much all connected - and checking out the two springs within the structure, we headed back so as to make it home before dark (and cold!). The return was even lovelier, with the setting sun over Peru and the Cordillera tinged with pink in Bolivia:
My camera does not do these mountains justice! The highest I´ve ever seen in my life.
We descended to the house just as the darkness closed in, perfect timing. I promptly collapsed on my bed and slept for two hours! I got up once more, to eat my cup of rice with milk, even though I was still full from lunch!, then hit the sack once again. Never have I felt so wiped from a three hour jaunt!
The next morning, we had to say goodbye, as our schedule mandated that we head back to the mainland and journey to La Paz. I was the last one to reach the boat - I think all the time I've been spending with Bolivians has shifted my internal clock to Bolivian time! Which means you're always later than you say you'll be. But SIT likes to operate on North American time, so I have to keep two different clocks in my head.
I think I will recount the second half of the trip in a separate post so as to not make this one too long! And please excuse any grammatical errors that you may find in my writing - I'm starting to have a hard time keeping Spanish grammar out of my English! But I have to consider that a good thing.
Ciao,
Lucy
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