Peruvian and Bolivian animals

While we were living in the mountains in Peru and during our holiday in Copacabama, we met so many cute animals that I thought we have to share it with you. Even the pigs are cute here...

Isla del $ol

Not far from Copacabana, you can sail to Isla del Sol or Titi'kaka, as it is called in Aymara. The island is full of archeological ruins and is beautiful in a peculiar way. The Incas believed that the sun god was born there. Today it looks more like they have learned about the money god, and they use any excuse to ask for money. Besides tourism, they are/were selfsufficient and grow and fish their own food. They still use the old terraces from pre-Inca times and grow mostly organic potatoes, quinoa, horse beans, lupin and oca roots.

Spot the totora boats.

Woman hoeing oca roots. Even if agriculture and fishing is still important in the island, tourism is taking over.

Maria touching the "holy" water, which still attracts people that want to be healed or need luck in their affairs. The guide gave us some of the water to drink, but Maria used it to wash her hands instead because she didn't want bacteria from the water. Ironically enough Maria probably already had giardia at the time...

From the north to the south there is an 8km path, which we took, but you have to pay at each of the villages just to enter them.

Copacabana

After over a month in Peru, we took a few holidays in Copacabana (Bolivia). We enjoyed it, even though the prices are overinflated and unrealistic. For example, we went to a "restaurant" where they charged 30 Bolivianos (same as Danish kroner, and about 4€) for a guacamole salad, that consisted of half a tomato, half an onion and half avocado cut in a few pieces without any dressing, literally! Andrés told the owner that we could have bought the same vegetables at the market for 3 Bolivianos and wouldn't pay more than 15 Bolivianos for it. The owner did not want to listen, until Andrés threatened to tell everybody on the street about it.

But Copacabana is a nice a cozy town, with many cute shops, interesting pre-Incan and Incan ruins, and from where you can take boat trips to the historical 'Isla del Sol' and 'Isla de la Luna'.

Our hostal room :P
More precisely, a traditional Aymara house.

'Inti watana' used for astronomical purposes by the pre-Incan culture, the Chiripas.

Copacabana, with 'Isla del Sol' in the background.

'Kusijata' or the Incan baths, a place with huge eucalyptus trees.

Giardia and the Elusive Toilet Soap

Giardia is a small bacteria or parasite or whatever, that can contaminate humans and animals through water, food and direct contact to infected people/animals. It is especially prevalent in countries with not much hygiene or clean water. The water in Peru and Bolivia seems clean enough - but still we have always either purified the water with pills or boiled it. But with the food, we haven't been so careful, and we have ofcourse shaken many people's hands and patted dogs and cats (or that was just me - Andrés knows better ;-). Moreover, soap is never found in public toilets or in most hostels, and so on. And I wonder how much it is used after going to the toilet... But I guess people here would have stronger immune systems than someone from a country of hysteric hygeinic rules that forces shops to throw good food away and is the only place in the world where eggs are refrigerated from it pops out of the hen's butt till it hits the frying pan.

So for a few weeks now I have been sick in the stomach, on and off, with alternating constipation and diarrhea. And the last few days also fatigue, where it's been a whole mountaineering exercise for me climbing some stairs or walking up a small hill. It's not certain I have Giardiasis, but next week I'll probably buy the medicine against it anyway.

Because I know the symptoms from previous experience! When I was in Cambodia about 8 years ago I got Giardiasis over several periods, even though I was on medication several times. I guess patting the dogs, playing with the kids and giving them swimming lessons in the mud pond didn't help much to avoid it. And the side effects have been with me since, as a constant souvenir from my time there. Ever since my time in Cambodia I've been struggling with irritable bowel syndrome. My mum made me go to the doctor and ask if I still could have Giardia. I could hardly make myself ask the doctor because I thought they would think it was stupid, especially if I said I had read about Giardia persisting for years, on the internet - because it seems like doctors don't like it when you talk about things from the internet. But so many websites and online forums mention cases with people getting irritable bowel syndrome after having Giardiasis. And so many people write about their doctors waving their persisting symptoms off with stress, bad lifestyle and so on, without taking tests. But even the tests seem to be quite precarious in proving Giardia as it only sometimes shows positive, even though the victim has it in him or her. I'm sorry for saying this but sometimes doctors don't seem to give a shit about taking the time to study about or think about the causes their patients might have to their symptoms, and just tell them some common cause like stress.

Here's a link to a study from Bergen University that concluded the existence of chronic conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome or chronic fatigue, years after patients had Giardiasis:
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/08/12/cid.ciu629.abstract

Finally Bolivia!

After one month in Peru, we finally entered Bolivia, with some days of relax in Copacabana.We will upload a couple of posts from here.

Foreigners not welcome!

Our last days in Peru have been very hectic. We were in four different towns/villages in one day and slept in dirty hostels, but Andrés got some valuable data. Thanks to the help of Kelluyo Tambo's manager, Alonso, we managed to get in contact with otherwise suspicious local people. And they have all the right to be so. In may 2011, a Canadian mining company got the rights to exploit the silver mine of Santa Ana in Huacullani, which lead to massive protests all around the Puno region, mainly because of environmental reasons and small benefits to the local communities. This event is commonly known as the 'aymarazo'. And still today this area is very suspicious of white people. Luckily, and thanks to Alonso's help, we did not encounter any problems, and the locals were very helpful, as they learnt about my thesis project and wanted to help in order to get a better commercial option for their qañawa, which is one of their main incomes.

Qañawa field affected by a dry spell early in the season. The plants are small and the yield will also be.

Huacullani, the place where the 'aymarazo' protests started. Further up to the left, out of the picture, the mining activity  is plundering the mountain of this valuable resource.

Kanccora Yacango

For a week we went higher up in the mountains where qañawa is grown. And lived in a Tambo in Kanccora Yancango, with no running water, but this time with a kitchen. A Tambo is an official governmental building for the development of rural areas. They serve as a link between the Peruvian government and the rural farming communities. In these high areas, many locals tend to be quite suspicious of strangers, because they have experienced exploitation of their resources by foreigners without real benefits to the locals. This made it difficult for me, Andrés, to gather some data, but I figured out that most of the qañawa crops there were mainly for self-consumption. And since my thesis is about value chains, the information I could collect here was not very relevant to my thesis project.

A QAÑAWA field at last!! They are similar in characteristics to quinoa, but a much smaller plant.
It has different names: in Peru it's called Cañihua and in Bolivia Cañahua. The Aymara call it Qañawa.

Another Qañawa field, but red. Next to the Qañawa field is a potato field which has been affected by the frost - the tops of the plants are black and dried out, giving a very low harvest for this year. But the Qañawa are much more resilient and have not been affected by the frost. 

On our second day in the mountains we hiked up to some cliffs to see a cave with old drawings on the walls. 

We didn't have a bag to carry food and water for our hike, so Andrés used our 'Awayu' blanket like the Aymara carry things.

Thanks to the help of the old community leader, we found the cave paintings. This woman was in amazingly good shape and could walk up the mountain faster than all of us.

The manager of the Tambo, Miguel, and Andrés talked to and learned from the local farmer communities about agricultural practices.

In front of our Tambo, was a vast plain where herders had their sheep, alpacas and pigs, and where we went to fetch water from a well.

To one of the meetings Andrés held for the authorities of the district, one of the men came by horse, like in an old western movie. It is the first and last horse we have seen in Peru. Donkeys, bikes, motorbikes or walking are much more common means of transportation.

In the top right our Tambo with red roof can be seen.