Lake Titicaca
Trip Start
Oct 17, 2006
1
14
40
Trip End
Mar 04, 2007
Puno,
Peru
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
The next morning we rode in rickshaws to the port and bought presents for the families we were going to stay with. Our first stop on Lake Titicaca was at the Uros Floating Reed Islands which are lots of small artificial islands made of reed(!) that were originally created by a tribe trying to escape from the Incas. The reeds have to be replaced every couple of weeks and eventually once the island touches the bottom of the lake it is abandoned.
We had a slow boat ride on to Amanti Island where we spent the night staying with a local family
01 View over Sillustani & lake
. Me, Ness, Em & Mary met our new 'sister' Aleja and got taken to our home for the night which had great views over the lake. We had lunch of rice and squeaky cheese, which made my teeth go on edge! In the afternoon we watched the locals play some football and later walked up to the highest hill on the island to watch the sunset which was sadly obscured by clouds. However we did have lovely views over Amanti and other islands on Lake Titicaca, including one with a snow capped mountain! There was a temple at the top which we walked around 3 times, which was supposed to make your wish come true but sadly it didn't work :-( In the evening we were dressed up in traditional costumes which were tied really tight and we went to the town hall to attempt some traditional dancing which mostly consisted of stepping backwards and forwards with the occasional twist. The next day we had a very rough ride to Taquille Island, which is run as a co-operative with all the inhabitants taking turns to do all the jobs. We walked up to the main plaza which had great views over the lake and over to Amanti Island. We wandered around the market before heading down to the port and taking the rather slow boat back to Puno.
