40 years, 23rd visit

 2026, 40th anniversary 

Our first visit to Taquile Island, as tourists, was in 1986. On that trip too big things happened: 1)We caught the dream of bringing a Taquileño couple to the United States. 2)We observed that Taquileños had no dependable source of electricity on the island.  

The results were that we brought that couple to the United States in 1988. It was magical, full of serendipitous meetings and fun (You can read about it on the earliest posts of this blog). And that led to us becoming godparents and coparents, and even parents and grandparents, with deep relationships in this beautiful community.

The other result was that we returned in 1988 with the first solar electric panel, thereby introducing solar to the island. Now many houses have rooftop solar and the entire island has large community array, feeding inverted power to all the houses. You will see many of these stories throughout this blog.

Traditional “pollo broaster” dinner

So this week we are back for the 23rd time, having visited mostly every other year or every year with a few gaps. We don’t think of this as tourism at all, but our other life with our beautiful indigenous family of Taquile Island.

First, we stay in Puno, the “folkloric capital of Peru” the big city by the bay where we will catch a boat to the island in the morning. Here are a few pictures from Puno:

Candalaria on Taquile

February 2, 2015, Candlemas, Imbolc, Groundhog Day, the cross quarter day between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox

It is a huge celebration in Puno two weeks of dancing in the streets and blessings the Virgin de Candalaria. They say it is second in South America only to Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. We have participated in Puno in past years and wanted to avoid the craziness this year. Turns out that Taquile has its own celebration, for one day in the main plaza. The dance is Negritos, originally a cerebration of freeing of the black slaves.

This was our first time to dress up in our indigenous clothing and celebrate properly. Takes some getting used to.

I´m too far from the band to get good sound.