Lake Titicaca, Peru

(m) Our backpacks were leaning against the wall outside of the hostel at 6am as we waited for our shuttle to pick us up and take us to our Cusco to Puno bus. To our dismay (identically to Antigua) it would not show and we frantically came up with a new action plan. We hailed a cab and sped towards the bus station in an attempt to catch it before it departed. Whops, we arrived to the wrong bus station. After asking around, we found where the bus should be and grabbed a new cab. To our dismay, it had already departed. After discussing the situation with the bus company manager, we decided to attempt to catch the bus at the first of its six site seeing stops along the way. Thankfully after a crazed 45 minute ride we caught up with bus and group.

Another stop was a visit to a traditional Peruvian house which had a room full of guinea pigs on display. These cute little guys aren't just pets here. They are a popular main course as well. Later in Puno I would sample one and find, not surprisingly, they taste like chicken though it took quite a bit of effort to nibble bites of meat from its tiny bones.

A baked guinea pig. Yummie!

Six hours passed and we rolled into Puno. Puno is the main town along the shores of Lake Titiacaca. This massive, high altitude lake sits at about 10,000 feet and claims to be the highest navigable body of water on earth. Two-thirds is a part of Peru and the remaining third lies in neighboring Bolivia. Puno would be our base for exploring the nearby towns and launching point for our boat excursion to the nearby islands.

On our first day we checked out the town of Plateria just south of Puno.

Heading back to the square we settled on one of three tiny restaurants. After asking for menus, the owner/waiter/cook told us he had fried cheese and fried trout, which would we like? We said, one of each please!

We "chose" well, the trout was great.

Our meal was washed down with the tasty Inca Cola, a Coca Cola product and #1 soda in Peru. It tastes like bubble gum.

As we finished our lunch, uniformed school children started to spill into the square. A couple of curious ones walked over to us and shortly after we had ten bright eyed kids gathered around our table checking us out. We had a good, slightly awkward, time trying to chat with them about school and the area.

The following day we left Puno in a rickety boat with a group of twenty or so. Our first stop was the floating islands of Uros made entirely of reeds from the versatile totora reed which is harvested in abundance from the lake's shallows. The reeds constantly rot on the bottom and are layered on top to keep the island afloat. These islands are home to about 2000 Uros tribes people living off of the lake and more recently, tourism. Originally the islands were created as a way to escape enemies on land. In recent years boats were used to bring the islands closer to Puno to help make it easier for day trippers to visit. I enjoyed the spongy, squishy under foot as we were toured around the resident's small huts and boats also made completely from Totora.

The islands are in 60 foot of water.

Not just for boats and islands, you can eat it too!

After motoring for several hours we reached Amantani Island where we would stay with a family for the night. I really enjoyed spending some time in their back to basics lifestyle. The Amantani residents live out their lives with little mainland interaction in basic houses with adjacent small farms. Our host family used candle light to illuminate the rooms and sat on an earth floor cooking our simple yet tasty meals of soup and fried cheese on a small wood burning stove.

Watch your head!

We hiked up the nearby mountain to enjoy the sunset.

Following dinner we were loaned some traditional attire to attend a dance in the nearby hall. The room was booming with flutes and drums as we tried our luck at this spin your partner around kind of dancing. What a blast!

In the morning we thanked our host family and headed out for another nearby island, Taquile, which also has local residents. A collective society, known for their fine knit handcrafits. It is the men who do a bulk of the knitting, we saw a dozen or so gents in the town square knitting and chatting away. The hat color indicates their marital status.Photo from wikipedia.