Actually I just pretended  that I was still on a boat because, in a sense, I was.The floating islands on Lake Titicaca in Peru are famous throughout South America. The Uros tribe members create their “land” from the long totora reeds that crowd the lake for miles in certain areas. They tie the harvested reeds in bundles to make great rafts, sometimes anchoring them with stone, but usually nestling them within the living reeds. More reeds are then chopped to create even surfaces for walking.

The reeds have many uses on the islands. The Uros skillfully weave them into boats that are wonderfully buoyant and they are the main building material for the homes. Even food is created from the pith of the reeds, which make a nourishing asparagus-like vegetable. Some of the pith is also dried and turned into flour, which is then made into bread.

It takes a skillful boatman to reach the Uros’ floating islands through a labyrinth of reeds.

The Uros began their floating lifestyle about two centuries before the Spanish conquest. While the Incas were busy empire-building, the group marched to the lake. The Uros had lived on the shores until then, but with the advancement of Inca armies they took refuge, hiding in the reeds.

For a long time, the Incas did indeed march right on by to go to war with the Aymaras, who lived on the far side of this huge lake. The two armies battled back and forth for years. However, the Incas eventually discovered the Uros, resulting in enslavement and taxation of the island dwellers.

In the end, the Incas gave up, leaving the Aymaras triumphant. The Uros began a small trade with the Aymaras, providing fish and reeds for land-raised goods. Eventually, the Aymara tongue was adopted by the Uros.

One thing didn’t change — the Uros didn’t leave the reeds. They remained where they felt safe and knew how to survive. To this day, even finding the floating islands takes a canny guide and skillful boatman to reach the water paths amid the miles of reeds.

In the middle of the island where we had been welcomed was a small hole where the Uros kids learn to swim. When literally living on a lake, drown-proofing the children becomes a priority.

There is also a small lookout tower on each island. This offers a way to stay in touch and signal one another as well as watch for trouble, or, these days, visitors.

While other Peruvian tribes revere Pachamama, or Mother Universe, the Uros revere Mother Lake. The bountiful lake provides them with fish and reeds, and the reeds provide them with nearly everything.

I notice strange-looking contraptions on the roofs of the straw huts. It seems the Uros used to use fish oil lamps or candles for light but that created a fire danger. Some bright soul came up with the idea of a small solar panel that could light a single light bulb and now most primitive straw huts throughout the villages have their own panel.

Children enjoy running and playing on their home on the water.

Special care has to be taken when cooking and fires are made atop stones so as to not burn the ground beneath them. A kind Uros woman showed us how she made her flour, grinding it between stones taken from the mainland, and let us taste the flatbread she baked. A big pot of water was kept at hand to douse any sparks that might fly.

Living on a floating island has its advantages. When the family gets too large or if there are disagreements in a village, a section of the island is sawed off and it floats away.

Our guide told us the island we were visiting used to be much larger, but that had occurred just recently here. Thus, the number of islands varies, but there are generally between 40 and 50 at any given time.

Island living also has its problems. The reeds have to be replenished constantly. We watched straw boats hauling in large loads of reeds for that purpose. If the reed mat gets so thick as to touch bottom, it begins to rot, so a boat must be hired to tow the island to deeper water.

If not kept up, the surface of the island can get spongy underfoot. Islands usually last a full generation, about 30 years, so island making is a constant project.

The surface of the island was strewn with chopped dry reeds. It was like walking where a bunch of hay bales had broken open. The golden color contrasted vividly with the green of the surrounding reeds and the blue of the lake waters.

In the market of the nearby town of Puno, the Uros hold the monopoly on fish sales. These days, however, as the fame of their strange islands spread, tourism is becoming an important source of income, with many of the tourists being fellow Peruvians.

The Uros boast skilled needlewomen and their work is in demand by visitors, increasing income. The men, so good at weaving their own boats, also weave miniature ones to sell. Most of the people incorporate tourist visits from small groups like ours into their regular routines and offer natural hospitality.

However, some only see dollar signs. One obnoxious fellow followed us on our ride on a straw boat playing the flute quite badly all the while, and then demanded a tip.  I wondered whether that attitude would spread among these innocent people whose unique culture had survived for so long.

The Uros women are skilled needleworkers whose work is in demand by visitors.

Nowadays, many of the young people paddle off in their boats to settle on shore and get jobs on the mainland. From thousands, the number of Uros still on the islands is down into the hundreds.

While there is still a lively village life with people paddling between islands and hauling their catch to shore, I fear the Uros way of life is slowly disappearing. The older folks do, too, as they lament the steady drain of their young. Of course, I can understand the lure of a life with bright lights and solid ground beneath one’s feet.

If You Go

Peru Tourism Board

www.peru.info

Originally a ‘Bama girl, Andrea Granahan left the South and settled in Bodega, California. An award winning journalist and former newspaper publisher, she now does freelance travel writing and loves out-of-the-way places.

Most Cuscovisitors flock to nearby Machu Picchuduring high season.

Throughout the year, but especially during the tourist high season, from April through November, visitors fill the streets, almost all enroute to see the towering majesty of Machu Picchu.

For many, Cusco, a beautiful and interesting city in its own right, is the place for purchasing Pablo Neruda poetry, developing photos, and for a privileged few, eating at the only Michelin-starred restaurant in South America.

But if you ever find yourself delayed enroute or just lingering, one hotel in Cusco stands above all others. Not by the luxuries, but because all profits go toward raising and feeding underprivileged Peruvian children.

Niños Hotel has been operating since 1998. At the helm is Titus Bovenberg and Jolanda van den Berg, with their large family. The hotel is a simple affair, tucked away a few blocks from the city center (Plaza de Armas) in the suburb of Calle Meloc.

The hotel’s main entrance opens onto a gracious courtyard where travelers often curl up in a chair with a good book and a cup of coffee. The hotel rooms, which surround the courtyard, are not identified by numbers; rather, each room is named for one of the street children supported by the project. Artworks by the children adorn the walls.

The hotel offers comfortable accommodations with private (US$ 34 per night) or shared bathrooms (US$ 28 per night). The private bathrooms have showers only, but travelers should note that water in the dry Andes is a scarce commodity, and conservation is much appreciated by the locals. While the hotel has no central heating, all the rooms have portable heaters and plenty of warm Peruvian blankets.

The beds are comfortable and the décor is clean-lined, with Swedish leanings. While there are no phones in the room, the front-desk staff tries very hard to make sure messages are kept and sent. And if you get bored sitting in your room, bare of televisions or radios, the welcoming café on the first floor has a warm fire going in the winter months, plenty of books to share and occasional fellow travelers with whom to exchange tales.

The story of Niños Hotel is a moving one. In December 1995, Dutch travelers Titus and Jolanda vacationed in Peru, mainly to see the Amazon jungle. Traveling through Cusco, the couple saw children — not in schools, but on the streets, selling fruit or postcards, shining shoes or begging for money. Moved by the state of the children, many of them living on the streets, Jolanda gave up her comfortable life in the Netherlands and returned to Cusco.

Cusco is situated in a mountainous area with deep canyons and vast, high-altitude plateaus.

From her savings and donations from home, Jolanda was able to rent a house and shelter five street children. It wasn’t long before Titus joined her and the growing family.

Not wanting to rely solely on donations from the Netherlands to support them and their children, numbering 12 by now, the couple sought alternative means.

The idea of a hotel appealed to both of them, especially since the children, all boys at the time, could learn a trade in the hotel, and the guests could act as natural advertisers for their cause and the children’s plight. The problem was finding the start-up investment.

When Jolanda visited friends and family in Holland, she spoke with the proprietor of a cheese shop where the couple had lived. It was said that no customer could leave the shop that day without first listening to the story of the Peruvian children. One of those customers wanted to meet with Jolanda on her short visit home.

Over coffee, Jolanda explained the project and what they hoped to accomplish, and to her great astonishment, her plans of starting a hotel came to miraculous fruition. Just like that, she was provided with the funds to purchase a home suitable for a hotel in Cusco. The donor simply said, “I will give you that money … I believe your hotel will be a success.”

The family chose a 17th century colonial house, which they remodeled. And in June 1998, the Niños Hotel in Calle Meloc opened. The couple lived, and still live, in the back with their ever-growing family. Although neither Jolanda nor Titus had any experience in the hospitality industry, the hotel became a success.

Twenty miles (32 km) northeast of Cusco, the Andean village of Pisac has Inca ruins that rival those found at Machu Picchu.

The couple has since started other ventures, including another Niños Hotel in Cusco and four free restaurants exclusively for underprivileged children — the Niños Children’s Restaurants.

All profits from the hotels help to feed more than 500 children a day at the children’s restaurants, as well as provide them with warm showers, medical and dental care, homework help and sports lessons. The profits also support foster families that adopt street children.

If You Go

Niños Hotel

The Niños Hotels are very popular, so book well in advance. They accept only cash, so remember to have sufficient U.S. or Peruvian funds to pay your bill.

www.Niñoshotel.com

The chullpas of Sillustani (pre-Incan funeral towers) sit high above Lake Umayo.

The traders, too, are already arriving and setting up their stalls on the sidewalk, first laying down the cerise and blue woven cloths that serve women as baby slings, backpacks and, now, a cloth on which to arrange trinkets.

We bartered with the vendors yesterday to buy yellow underwear, which we plan to wear at midnight tonight — a Peruvian tradition said to bring good luck for the New Year.

Before we start on the day’s adventures, we enter the dining room to find a table spread with red and orange cloths. The smiling staff of our hotel has prepared a cornucopia of breakfast foods: quinoa, oatmeal, maca, or wheat porridge, fresh mangoes, papaya juice, bananas, oranges, crusty white rolls, strawberry jam and strawberry yogurt. Tea in hand, I gaze through the picture window at the distant mountains across the lake.

We leave the hotel in a private combi, a tour bus, to go up the mountain and visit the chullpas of Sillustani, pre-Incan funeral towers high above Lake Umayo. The chullpas were made of immense granite blocks, shaped into cylindrical forms that rise as high as 39 feet (12 m). It’s astonishing to see these jigsaw-puzzle structures in which massive stones were fitted together without the benefit of modern lifting equipment.

The scenery is akin to that of my native Pennine Mountains in Britain, albeit on a much larger scale. Purple heather blooms, and tufts of moorland grass, bleached at the tips, wave in the slight breeze. Alpacas graze alongside sheep, and are accompanied by shepherds holding large crooks.

It’s easy to indulge the fantasy of being lost in time and space, of being back in a purely agricultural society. When we give an eight-year-old shepherdess some fresh fruit, she tells us her name is Vanessa. To me, the highlands seem like a great place for meditation, but I can’t imagine any children I know being content to be so alone with the sky, the mountain spirits and the beasts. I wonder what Vanessa thinks of all day long as she watches the herd.

Peruvian shepherdesses in traditional dress pose for the camera.

The view is spectacular; you only have to turn a few degrees to see a different panorama. The air is so clear that you can see for miles to distant peaks, and the gently moving clouds throw shadows on the mountains as though trying out different garments.

The ancestors of the indigenous people here buried their dead high in the mountains, in caves on inaccessible peaks. They believed that the dead would be closer to the spirit of the mountain that way. Families used to visit the graves once a year, bearing food and gifts.

We bring gifts to the living, handing out chalk, pens, flashlights, candy, fruit and sunscreen to kids who have few material goods. In return, they pose for photographs. The cute little girls know that if they clutch a lamb and gaze winsomely at us, we’ll surely take their photograph and give them a few coins. Even if they have never heard of Little Bo Peep, the pose of shepherdess comes naturally to them. They hug the lambs and cradle them as though they were dolls.

On the way down the mountain, our tour guide stops at a shepherd’s compound, which consists of two one-room dwellings linked by a fireplace and surrounded by a wall. The living quarters are low, small, and dark: One for his daughter and her family and one for him, his wife and two boys. The homes are built of dried mud blocks. They remind me of the wattle-and-daub cottages of medieval England.

The only light is from a strip of llama skin that has been coated in tallow, like the wick of a giant candle, dangling from the ceiling. One side of the hut is taken up with a bed in which the family sleeps. The other has a loom, and pieces of fabric and rugs made from llama wool, which the shepherd works on while there is light. His wife’s communion and bridal shawl hangs there on the wall, a finely embroidered piece that looks incongruous in this smoky setting. The shepherd has also hung up his daughter’s school certificates; it’s the family parlor, with treasures on display.

After the shepherd has demonstrated his deadly accuracy with a slingshot and a rock that could kill a person as well as marauding pumas, he offers us a snack, a wheel of creamy llama cheese looks like Brie but has a chalky texture. This is accompanied by homegrown potatoes, small and knobbly, from the rocky ground. If there’s one thing Peru does well, it’s potatoes — there are hundreds of varieties.

After the repast, the shepherd, who is also a shaman, offers us some gray clay that’s supposed to help with digestion, and then prepares a New Year’s Eve spell for us. He burns herbs and ground powders in a handmade bowl and makes sure we each inhale the fragrance and immerse ourselves in the smoke. He asks where we’re from, and sends blessings bouncing back to Tennessee for my husband and me, Lima for our son, and Scotland for our daughter.

The Peruvian shaman/shepherd prepares a New Year’s blessing for his visitors.

I buy a rug from the shaman-shepherd; it reminds me of the ones my grandmother used to make. My new llama rug is beige, brown, and black, the natural colors of the llamas, and it won’t go with my color scheme. Yet, it means more to me than mass-produced ones, since I know that this shepherd has clipped the wool (which is done only every two years), spun it and woven it into a rug. It retains the smoky smell of his house.

The view from the man’s mountain hut is as fine as anywhere in Peru. The concept that the dead are looking down on us not from an intangible heaven, but from a cave in the mountains, is an idea that I like; it makes me feel very close to my late father and grandmother.

It’s a fitting end to an old year, and a perfect welcoming of all that is to come in the New Year.

If You Go

Peru Tourism

www.peru.info/perueng.asp

He explains that in this area of Peru, if a person commits a crime he will be bound to the Justice Tree and left overnight. By daybreak, only a skeleton will remain. All the flesh would be devoured.

“But what, you ask, would eat a man?” Victor says with a magician’s flourish. He taps the tree bark with his machete. Thousands of fire ants cover the bark, prepared to fight and devour. “This is why tomorrow, when we trek through the jungle of Monkey Island, you must cover all of your skin. You don’t want to get bit by a fire ant or mosquito or something else.”

I have no desire to find out what ‘something else’ means. The next morning I am careful to leave no flesh exposed. I look like the bundled up kid from A Christmas Story, despite the fact it is 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 C), sunny and humid. I have no desire to be a snack for an insect.

Victor brandishes a machete and hacks a way for us through the brush. He points out tarantulas, which are as large as my hand, and monkeys swoop down from the ceiling of trees and allow us to hand feed them bananas. In the evening, our group returns to the lodge, which consists of quaint screened-in wooden cabins offering two beds, two hammocks, a rocking chair and a shower. The cabins are not equipped with electricity, which, although annoying at first, is probably good, as I’m sure in the night that creepy crawly insects populate the cabin floor. Some things are just better left unseen.

Wildlife is abundant in the Amazon Basin of Peru.

I know that aside from my roommate, there were indeed, other creatures living in the room. One night, I wake sitting upright in bed scratching my ankle with such ferocity as to remove skin. Mercifully, I falll back to sleep and in the morning examine the red welt on the inside of my left ankle.

I look closely at the bump. At first I think it is a spider bite. I once had a spider bite and the bump was visible and hardened in the same manner. The only difference was at the summit of the bump, only one opening was visible, while usually with a spider bite there are two small incisions. As I layer up for the day’s hike, I make a mental note to watch the bite to make sure an infection does not set in.

For the next several days the bite itches periodically, but the redness remains in a localized area. I fly back home to New Jersey and begin treating the wound by drowning it in hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol. By this time, I have irritated it so badly that it resembles a small volcano. The red bump is a half-inch (1.2 cm) in height and in the center of the wound there is an opening. I affectionately refer to the bump as my second left ankle. I keep waiting for the opening to scab up and heal. For the next several days, I pour peroxide directly into the hole and cover it with a bandage.

Several boxes of BAND-AIDs later, the opening in my flesh is still not closing. So, I do the next logical step: I ignore it. Perhaps by constantly flooding the cut with peroxide, I am not allowing the chance for it to heal and dry up on its own. Yes, ignoring the wound seems to be the next best course.

Four weeks after being bitten in the Amazon, the wound is still not better. I finally decide to go to a doctor. He prescribes a topical antibiotic and an oral antibiotic. The pills are so large, it is possible to throw them in spiral fashion, like a football. Since I dislike taking pills, I decide to only use the topical antibiotic.

I eagerly fill the prescription and go home to do battle with my flesh wound. I slather on the ointment and spackle up the hole in my leg. I notice after a minute of filling the hole up with the cream, it blows out the cream like a valve. I think: “Hmmm. It looks like my second ankle is breathing.” I push some more cream into the hole and firmly secure it with a bandage.

The adventures are endless when trekking through jungles of the Peruvian Amazon.

I follow this regimen for several days. I notice my second ankle is no longer as red, but it is still very hard and the hole is as big as ever. Also, every two hours I experience a stabbing sensation, as if someone is taking a needle and shoving it directly into the hole in my leg. I discover that draining the wound, like squeezing a giant pimple with my thumbs, helps alleviate the pain.

Now I have a new step to my regimen. About four times a day I drain my volcano, then spackle it shut with the cream. I wait for the stabbing sensation to return and then repeat the procedure.

One day at work, exactly six weeks since the time of the original bite, I have had enough. I am doing computer work when the acute stabbing feeling returns. I go to an empty room, prop my leg on a table and vow to finally drain this wound for good. I grab a ream of paper towels and go to work. The more I press, the more transparent orange-yellow liquid oozes. I mop up the exudate with a paper towel. I change the position of my thumbs and press on the wound from different angles. More liquid pours from the hole. I press harder. Tears well in my eyes. I am really hurting myself.

As I continue pressing, I can see a white substance surface at the hole. Perhaps this is pus and I can simply squeeze the pus capsule out. Now I have a goal. I attack my leg with a vengeance. I press on it again and see the white thing surface once more. I resolutely give my wound the mother of all squeezes, and suddenly a half inch (1.2 cm) long white thing that looks like a piece of uncooked spaghetti shoots out from my wound.

I grab the thing; still thinking it is a large column of pus between my thumb and forefinger. It stands firm and erect and is still anchored in the wound. It is not squishy. It is hard and it is wiggling and it is trying to get back into my leg!

“Oh my god!” I shout to no one. “It’s not pus! It’s a worm!” I am hyperventilating, holding half a maggot that has been living in me for six weeks. If I let the worm go, it will retreat back into my leg. If I pull on it, the worm will rip in half. The larva is not letting go of my ankle. I feel my stomach do a back flip and I begin to gag. “Get a hold of yourself!” I command. “Focus! Get the worm out of your leg, NOW!”

I continue to hold the worm between my thumb and index finger to prevent it from retreating back into my leg. Using my other hand, I dig my fingernails into the skin around the hole. I give the worm a good pull. It snaps in half. I put that half on the paper towel and pop the other half from my ankle. I seal the worm in a baggie as proof of what I have just endured. I hysterically tell a few colleagues about my struggle and rush to the doctor clutching my baggie full of worm.

Despite its drawbacks, the Amazon is a beautiful and unforgettable place.

In the doctor’s office, I sit upon the upholstered, paper-covered patient table. The doctor enters and calmly asks what brings me here today. I proudly hold up my baggie and exclaim, “I just popped this out of my leg!” This is the first time I have seen a doctor visibly pale.

He brings in another doctor to help him as he admits this is the strangest thing he has had to deal with. I ask him to imagine how I felt.

The three of us pour over a volume of “Clinical Dermatology,” and discover the parasite I played host to for six weeks was Dermatobia hominis, better known as the Human Botfly. My understanding of what happened is that the botfly landed on me while I was sleeping, bit me and quickly deposited an egg in my skin. The egg hatched and the larva grew and fed and tunneled about in my ankle happy to be living in a warm nutrient-filled home. I guess the worm did not know it would be journeying to New Jersey.

The inflamed cyst on my leg is properly called a warble, not a mini-volcano. The maggot is called a bot. While living in the warble, the larva needs to poke its head out and surface for air once a minute. This explained why the layer of cream I used to cover the hole continued to flap open.

There are three ways to remove a botfly larva from the skin. The first is by manual pressure, squeezing the wound like a pimple. The second is by flushing out the maggot by injecting a solution of lidocaine hydrochloride. The third is the Bacon method. I thought this procedure was named after a doctor distantly related to the actor Kevin Bacon, but it is aptly named, as the procedure requires the patient to place a fatty piece of bacon atop the hole of the wound. Within three hours, the maggot chooses to eat bacon rather than human flesh. Needless to say, I am relieved not to have to go food shopping for my larva.

My life has been changed forever by this experience. The mere fact I gave birth to an entity through a hole in my ankle has rendered me minor celebrity status. Many people curiously want to know who is the father. My friends have yet to organize a baby shower on my behalf, but certainly, bacon would be an appropriate gift.

If You Go

National Center for Infectious Diseases — Travelers Health

www.cdc.gov/travel/index.htm