Pre-Christmas Road Trip, Part Three: Capachica Peninsula

Perhaps I shouldn't lead off with the most spectacular photo of the entire blog post, but the view from our terrace here was breathtaking, and having these two sirens posing in the foreground made for a priceless shot!

The next leg of our trip sent us inland a bit, then around the lake clockwise to the far more remote Capachica peninsula. If Puno and Islas Uros are defined by their tourist hordes, this place typifies the opposite. We drove for a few hours, deep into the countryside, only to wind up in the most rural and rustic of settings, albeit still along a stunningly beautiful stretch of lake shore. We had read that, although we could have the tiny village of Llachon to ourselves, pushing beyond it toward an even smaller Santa Maria would put us at Casa Felix, which boasts arguably the best view on Lake Titicaca. While I'm confident that the above photo substantiates this claim, I can't help but throw in a few more landscape shots for punctuation:

Farm houses and terraced fields, Llachon

Isla Taquile in the distance (the subject of our next blog post)

To me, the best part of staying at Casa Felix was that, although Felix' wonderful family provided very comfortable accommodations in their hospedaje (home-stay), they remained very much in the gritty, rural Peruvian context and, deliberate or not, they hadn't sanitized our experience any. To illustrate this point, here's a shot of the family goat that enjoys the shade and wind shelter just outside our bedroom window:

And here's where Felix keeps his chanchos, just spitting distance from our other bedroom window. 

(I realize I could have simply used the word "pigs" or "swine", but chancho has become one of Lola's and my favorite Spanish words, so we try to use it every time the opportunity presents itself.)

Then, just beyond the chanchos (there's that glorious word again), lay the most beautiful sandy beach on Lake Titcaca, or so they say...

Check out the Pearce girls down there in full frolic.

A closer shot of said frolicking.

...and when frolicking turns to live burial.

During out stay, Mama and Norah went on a hiking "date" along the lake shore.

...And Mel captured an outstanding shot of Norah perched on the rocks. I want this choice image in my head the moment I shuffle off this mortal coil:

I worship this darling little turd.

Then Mama and Harper's subsequent date took them inland, first to observe the local 4-H animal husbandry program...

...then on an inspection of the town's storm water (and sewer?) infrastructure. Are you starting to see why we don't eat the chancho? Around these parts, at least, pigs are filthy animals, and we don't eat filthy animals.

And I know, I know. Bacon tastes good! And pork chops taste good! 

But, hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but we won't eat the filthy things. We ain't eatin' nothing that ain't got sense enough to disregard its own feces. And ours, for that matter. 

But I digress. So, I was fortunate to be able to get in a little morning trail running while we were on the peninsula. The scenery from the high point of the peninsula was nothing less than breathtaking, and I really wish these shots did justice to being on top of it all. Thanks for enduring these panoramas.
Can someone kindly queue the Spanish version of The Sound of Music???

View of the Chucuito Peninsula to the south, which helps to create the bay at Puno (right)

Another shot of the Chucuito peninsula, but also of our beach on the left.

Some of the ba-jillions of ruins in this country, with Ccotos bay to the north.

Ruins of, I believe, an Inca funerary tower, with Isla Amantani beyond to the east.

The trail run was fun and all, but then things got genuinely and unexpectedly cultural. As it happens, Felix is some sort of town official, and on this very Saturday he was hosting the wedding of his goddaughter, the only wedding that had taken place in Llachon in quite some time. Anyhow, Felix had been gushing about this event to us for days, and had repeatedly invited and encouraged us to attend and participate. Suddenly we didn't feel at all like tourists! Certainly feeling out of our element and unsure what to expect next, yes, but at least not feeling like Puno tourists, and that was a really cool feeling!

This wedding was a big deal, folks. The whole town came out...on foot!

Check out the hats on these ladies, apparel unique to this peninsula only.

The family had even hired a brass band to play music (quite loudly) the entire day.

First a toast. Note the confetti in everyone's hair.

The girls were dumbfounded at the scene. Heck, we all were!

Dudes over here, chicks over there. 
This kind of reminds me of my teenage church dances, 
only with a whole lot less angst and, thankfully, totally flaccid.

True, there was a whole lot less angst on this occasion, but never did I say that things didn't get awkward. As you will witness below, apparently the thing to do is go through the reception line and give money to the bride and groom. However, as much as we had been coached by Felix on this custom, he had failed mention that we were supposed to pin the money onto one or both of the newlyweds and that, despite the ear-splitting din of the brass band, the wedding party would be stone faced and stoic for this entire process. Compounding this awkwardness was that it felt like all eyes were on the Gringos to see what we would do and, most maladroit of all, Melissa is filming every agonizing and oafish move that I made, right up to the point before the dead-pan groom floundered to kiss my hand!

Observe and enjoy....

All of my bungling aside, the wedding was really genuine and spontaneous to us as outsiders, and we count it as one of the coolest experiences we've had so far in Peru. Here are a few more shots of the wedding that I really like:

Our next stop on this trip is called Chiffron, a tiny little hillside hamlet on the northeast side of the peninsula. Our book indicates that, if we find Llachon to be too cosmopolitan for our liking, we can really rough it by staying in Chiffron. Boy, were they right! 

To all those who will ever read this post, please bring me back to reality if you ever hear me complain about our living conditions. How can I possibly grouse about the size of our HD screen now that my family has slept in bedrooms with dirt floors, sat on toilets with neither tank nor seat, and possessed in our mouths more teeth than an entire zip code? Folks, we really don't grasp how good we have it back in the good ol' U. S. of A.

As basic as our accommodations were, it was actually really refreshing to have it so. It was like camping at a KOA full of goats, except that someone had stolen the shower. 

Our hosts, Emiliano and his Quechua wife who's name is unpronounceable to Gringos without causing injury, were about the sweetest couple we have ever met. They made every extra effort to ensure that we were comfortable, well fed, and, most of all, that he had told us everything that there is to know about this tiny little community. It was like Bubba waxing verbose to Forrest about the shrimpin' business. After the first two hours of the lecture, Melissa and the girls abandoned me and I started to measure time on a geological scale, bless his heart. Awesome folks, though, and a really cool experience in a beautiful setting.