Jaunted

Women knitted nonchalantly and expertly during the trip. One used a top-like tool to spin wool into tight thread. The trademark small bowler hat, popular in Bolivia, perched askew on the women's heads. (I don't know how, but the hats never fall off.)

A young woman held her left cheek in pain. “Tourist, do you have anything for a toothache?” she asked with a grimace. I don't even have an aspirin, I responded. Then I remembered: “But I do have coca...”

She gladly accepted and while I took out the bag, a large, talkative woman quipped “if you give it to her, you've got to share it with everybody.” So I did, feeling a bit like a foolish gringo, but quickly realized that passing around coca was standard, friendly etiquette. The elderly passengers especially grabbed handfuls of leaves and chomped away.

At Amantaní, the boat captain, Efraín Quispe, set me up at his family's house. (Many Amantaní families take in tourists for a few bucks – another person on the boat also offered me lodging.)

After eating a potato vegetable soup made by Efraín's wife on a traditional clay oven, their 13-year-old son Diego gave me a tour of the island. We started by swimming in the frigid lake. I didn't last long in the icy water, and let the intense sun warm me as Diego and his buddies splashed around with two-liter Coke bottle-turned-floaties. Three girls, about nine years old, washed clothes next to me, talking quietly and seriously.

Diego then led me on a lung-searing, 45-minute hike to the island's highest point, Pachamama. He lent me a knit hat with ear flaps, called a chuyo, because it's so cold, he warned, “you don't go to Pachamama without your chuyo.”

Amantaní's three-square mile surface is cut into tiny plots for cultivation, which from Pachamama looks like a tactile painting against the blue lake backdrop. Diego is a fun and informative guide. He told me about his family's history with island ghosts and I had him practice sentences with the English verbs to have and to like. We got back to the town before the island, which has no electricity, plunged into darkness.

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