Lake Titicaca

After a deserved relaxation in Cuzco for a few days we headed across to a place called Puno, a town on the shore of Lake Titicaca. According to the Peru Lonely Planet the lake is the largest in South America and the highest lake in the world. However in the Bolivia section (Lake Titicaca is shared by both Peru and Bolivia) it says it´s one of the highest lakes in the world..whatever the case..its big, and high! And absolutely beautiful too!

There are lots of different islands on the lake that you can visit so we took a boat out to the first one, Islas Flotantes. The islands are inhabitated by the Uros people, a small tribe, and are amazing...they are built soley using reeds that are found growing in the lake. It´s crazy! We arrived and stepped into the reeds quite scared that we would fall through but its actually very strong! Everything on the island is built out of reeds..their houses, furniture and their boats they use to get across to other little reed villages. The islands are actually floating on the lake. They are made of sods of earth, which float on the water, from which the reeds themselves grow. These bits of earth are anchored down most of the time, but occasionaly the villagers remove anchor and float around on the lake! The Uros women were very welcoming and showed us exactly how it all works! They sang us goodbye at the end of the visit too!

The next island we arrived at was Isla Amantani and this was where we were to spend the night. There was pretty much nothing but farming land and a few houses on the island so where we were spending the night we had no idea! However, we were met at the boat by a woman who told us to follow her. We arrived at her house and were introduced to her mother-who was cooking our lunch! We were shown to our room, where we had amazing views of the island. We were literally staying in this family´s house! So weird! We had lunch, dinner and breakfast there..which basically consisted of potatoes, potatoes and more potatoes! Very odd looking potatoes too! Apparently they have over 80 different types of potatoes in Peru! Unfortunately the ones we were given looked like maggots. They were quite tasty though! It was quite an experience living with this very friendly family for a night and was great walking around the island-MORE amazing scenery and views!