Isla Tequina
The next day we say good-bye to our families and head to a neighboring island; Isla Tequina. Flora has been very nice, but business like, so our good-bye is brief. I think she is afraid I was damaging the structure of her second floor bedroom.
The one time I was able to engage Flora in conversation it was very enlightening. I asked her how she could identify her 15 sheep from the hundreds roaming the the hillside. She looked at me in a very puzzled manner and said "They have always been mine."
We reach Is la Tequina after about and hour. When we get there it is another hour to hike to the town on the top. The neighboring islands are unique in the fact that Anamatani is 70% female and Tequina is 70% male. One would think that enterprising men would have figured this discrepancy out and made a move across the lake. But the populations stay about the same year after year.
At our lunch we are explained the complicated messages conveyed by the way men and women wear there clothes on the islands. The men wear tall hats with pomp pomps on top. From the color and position of the hats on the head, you can identify a man´s age and marital status. The women wear long, black, embroidered head scarves. The position of the scarves denotes their marital status and their willingness to be approached by a man. I think this a system I could get behind in US.
I met a few women from Boston on the island. Amazingly they are the second Americans I have seen so far. A majority of this tour group are Israeli men just released from their mandatory military service. They say that it is very popular for the men just out of the army to spend 6 months traveling through South America. I picked them out as soldiers as soon as I saw them. They remind me very much of the young men that would come eat Sunday dinner at the Yelverton house.
We return to Puno, Peru early that evening.
The next day we say good-bye to our families and head to a neighboring island; Isla Tequina. Flora has been very nice, but business like, so our good-bye is brief. I think she is afraid I was damaging the structure of her second floor bedroom.
The one time I was able to engage Flora in conversation it was very enlightening. I asked her how she could identify her 15 sheep from the hundreds roaming the the hillside. She looked at me in a very puzzled manner and said "They have always been mine."
We reach Is la Tequina after about and hour. When we get there it is another hour to hike to the town on the top. The neighboring islands are unique in the fact that Anamatani is 70% female and Tequina is 70% male. One would think that enterprising men would have figured this discrepancy out and made a move across the lake. But the populations stay about the same year after year.
At our lunch we are explained the complicated messages conveyed by the way men and women wear there clothes on the islands. The men wear tall hats with pomp pomps on top. From the color and position of the hats on the head, you can identify a man´s age and marital status. The women wear long, black, embroidered head scarves. The position of the scarves denotes their marital status and their willingness to be approached by a man. I think this a system I could get behind in US.
I met a few women from Boston on the island. Amazingly they are the second Americans I have seen so far. A majority of this tour group are Israeli men just released from their mandatory military service. They say that it is very popular for the men just out of the army to spend 6 months traveling through South America. I picked them out as soldiers as soon as I saw them. They remind me very much of the young men that would come eat Sunday dinner at the Yelverton house.
We return to Puno, Peru early that evening.
posted by Terrell at 10:55 AM
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