amantani island
After the Uros Islands, our boat (named Royal Caribbean, by the way) chugged three more hours over increasingly choppy waters to the comparatively bleak island of Amantani, where we waited awkwardly in front of a gathering crowd of local families, and our guide called our names one by one, matching us up with our hosts. There aren't any hostels on the island, so guests instead have little choice but to do a homestay with a local family who has a room especially set aside for tourists.
Fortunately, our family (Javier and Mathilde, above) turned out to be quite friendly. Other than buying some of their handknit hats and making small talk with them and their four year old (camera shy) son Lieber, there wasn't much else to do on Amantani except hike up the two local hills, Pachapapa and Pachamama.
The walk up Pachapapa is flanked by more women and girls selling more bracelets and hats. Leslie and Nilda, above, sold me a keychain that looked like a cross between a sad raindrop and a ghost, and later followed us down the mountain in the dark, giggling, asking for our names, for English translations of Spanish words, and then abruptly demanded a sol in exchange for their names, which of course they'd already told us. I tried to ask for a sol in exchange for my name back, but apparently my name doesn't command a particularly high price out there. In any case, we parted on friendly enough terms, but it was still a bit awkward. Though I wouldn't put it past my terrible Spanish to find out that we'd actually been talking about something else entirely different, so who knows.
Also on top of Pachapapa, we met a really friendly dog, and he and Iain had a moment.
After the hike up Pachapapa, we headed over to Pachamama, which was not only curiously free of bracelet sellers, but which had the most amazing panoramic sunset views I think I've ever seen in my entire life. It was awesome. Also freezing, but totally worth it.
We hiked back in the dark, accompanied by Leslie and Nilda, and were eventually collected by Javier and taken home to a pretty satisfying candelit dinner consisting of a lot of potatoes. Afterwards, there was the option to put on some traditional clothes and go to a dance party, but we deferred - something about the pitch black of the (mostly) electricity-less island made us both tired enough to fall asleep by eight o'clock.
