Puno, Lake Titicaca & bye bye Peru!
Trip Start
Mar 05, 2008
1
15
107
Trip End
Jan 11, 2009
Lake Titicaca,
Peru
Thursday, April 10, 2008
In the morning we caught bucycle tuk tuks down to the pier. We boarded a small boat & headed out onto Lakel Titicaca. Lake Titicaca (I'm sure we've all heard the name & had a little giggle!) is the highest and largest navigable lake in the world. It looks like an ocean, it's so big!
Our first stop on the boat was past the reeds and to a floating island! These people collect the roots of the reeds, tie them all together, then place reeds on top to make a floating island. These days they anchor the island down so they don't wake up the next morning in Bolivia ..
Boating through the reeds - Lake Titicaca
. but you get the idea. It was amazing. The little island has reed houses, and even a pig grazing out the back! We all went for a ride on a reed boat with the island children. They suffer terribly from sun exposure due to no sunscreen & the glare from the water.We continued on from there to the Llechon community on the other side of the lake. We were divided up into pairs and 'fostered out' to local families. Ian & I stayed with elder called Jesus, his wife Candelaria & their three grandchildren. They cooked us a massive lunch that we could not finish!
In the afternoon we went & farmed some more spuds with Nathan & his host (Jesus's son) for the night's big feast. Afterwards, our whole group hiked up to the top of a hill to watch the sunset.
Then we hiked back to our houses where we were dressed by our hosts in traditional clothing for a bug group dinner. (Breathing was clearly optional in the female outfit I was wearing!!!)
The next morning we had breakfast, I helped milk a cow, then we gave presents to the family
Kylie meets the locals on the floating island
. Ian & I gave them 2kg of rice & some cooking oil. We also gave them a ball & some face paints for the kids - coutesy of Sara, who had no children in her house! After this, a few of us also walked 45 mins with the kids to the local school & presented them with a few more pressies - pencils, art stuff, exercise books, etc.After leaving Llechon we took the boat to Tequile Island (a 'real' island on Lakel Titicaca). We hiked yet again (geez, you'd think I'd be skinny by now!) & then had a nice trout lunch (oh yeah, that's why I'm not skinny by now!)
We returned to Puno around 5.30pm. We were really, really tired, so spent the rest of the night in our hotel room. We knew it was last night in Peru, but just couldn't muster the energy to go out & celebrate with the crew! We really must be getting old!!!
