The highest navigable lake in the world - Lake Titicaca

Today, we went on a boat from Puno to Lake Titicaca, at 3,800m this is the highest navigable lake in the world and also the largest in South America. Our first stop on the journey was at the floating islands of the Uros. These are little islands made entirely out of reeds that float on the lake. The people that inhabit them are the Uros, and altough it´s a little commercialised (you get accosted as soon as you stop of the boat to buy stuff), it´s an amazing sight to behold - standing on a lake with little houses, boats and the island itself made entirely out of reeds.


We were given some of the reeds to eat - it´s a source of calcium apparently, they actually didn´t taste to bad kind of like celery. It was a weird sensation as you walked on the island, every footstep was spongy and felt like a giant water bed. A really cool place to visit and an amazing insight into a completely different way of life.


We then headed out to the inhabited island of Amantani, where we stayed the night with a local family. The journey to the island took about 3.5 hours because we were in the slowest boat i´ve ever been in (I could have swam faster), still we finally reached the island and were met by Veronica, the daughter of the local family. Of course we can´t speak Spanish and the local family couldn´t speak English so there was a lot of smiles and hand signals - very awkward but you get past all this. We were shown our room in their mud house. A nice little room, 3 beds, a table, a chair and a little candle.


We were given lunch (we had both been shitting a brick about this), a really nice soup followed by a plate of vegetables and a meat like substance that squeaked - no shit.


In the afternoon we took a hike up the local mountain, on our way passing the local football stadium (check out the flickr photos if you don´t beleive me). From on top of the mountain we watched the sunset, before heading back down. Our evening meal was rice and potatoes, then it was time to get dressed up as locals and head out for an evening of local Peruvian dancing. Was fun to get dressed up, but you can see that the families get so shit bored of this every night with different tourists. Still something completely different to do. After the dancing a huge electrical storm broke out so we just chilled and watched the lighting forking across the sky.

The next day we left Amantani and headed to another island steeped in local traditions - Taquile. After a 1 hour hike in the blistering heat, not to mention the altitude, we were exhausted by the time we reached the town square. We were given some information from our guide about the locals (why the men wear different hats in different positions to denote their marital status and age - I guess it makes dating a skoosh). We left the island and got the slow boat back to Puno.

Back in Puno there was a massive festival taking place - all the students from the local university take to the streets in costume, dancing and singing for about 12 hours. It was an amazing sight to see, the costumes so vibrant and alive. Jacquie was almost hypnotised by the spectical.


We went out for a pizza and then some beers with a nice English couple Steve and Gill whom we met on our tour of Lake Titicaca. By the end of the night I was totally sauced up, as was Steve, but thankfully we got to sleep in the next day (our first time to sleep past 8am in 2 weeks) unlike Steve and Gill who had to get a bus at 5am to La Paz. Ouch