After our brief visit to the Uros islands, we made our way to Amantani island. We stayed on the island one night with a local family, who looked after us, fed us incredibly well (and all vegetarian to Monika’s delight as meat is scarce on the islands) and best of all they shared with us stories about their lives and all their positive energy (and trust me there was a lot of it!). Efifania, our host mami (or Fanny for short) was the most happy, positive and talkative woman we’ve met in Peru and her children 12 year old Milagros and 14 year old Noelberto were equally as beautiful. In the evening we dressed up in local costume in preparation for the local dance. To our great sadness it was cancelled because of bad weather but we still had a lovely evening exchanging stories with the family.
One of the things that struck me about this island is the great atmosphere and positivity of the people. All the Amantaniños are constantly smiling, none more so than Fanny, and they need absolutely no reason to break into a giggle. Everyone is friends on the island and help each other and there is no police necessary as the islanders abide by the old Incan rules of “don’t steal, don’t lie and don’t be lazy”. Perhaps it’s something to do with the fact that there is complete equality on the island i.e. everyone is poor (purely in the material sense of course) as even when we asked Fanny are there any richer people in the island she didn’t seem to even grasp the concept fully and answered that one of the 3/4 local shops has a few more products than the rest.
But don’t be fooled the Amantaniños know how to party, they regularly organise dances and their weddings last three days, first day for the whole village and second and third for the family. Reminds me of us serbs (and incidently the costumes are very similar to ours and the Quechua word for father is tata). So our final experience in Perú was another wonderful one and sums up for me the attitude of most of the population- if you have good company and a little quinoa you should consider yourself very lucky.
Fanny preparing our delicious lunch- she made the best quinoa soup we had in Perú
Guess what was the main course- vegetables with local Amantani grilled cheese otherwise known as Peruvian Halloumi
After such a delicious lunch we had to help with the washing up
The houses were clearly designed for Peruvians
Luckily Fanny's homemade alpaca hat kept me warm in the cold Amantani night
Our super friendly Amantani friends also made sure we didn't get wet in the storm
Keeping us warm and giving us energy at the same time we could choose from mate de coca or mate de muño
Dinner time with Noelberto, Milagros and Fanny
Amantaniñas
We had our own little dance at home 🙂
