Blogs from Taquile Island, Lake Titicaca , Puno, Peru, South America

So after a beautiful bus ride from Cusco to Puno we were excited to visit Lake Titicaca. Devon was still under the weather and was on day 2 with no food/water! A tough cookie, she still was eager to do an overnight stay with a family on one of the islands on Lake Titicaca. In the end, we opted not to spend the night on one of the Islands given the temperature and Devon´s illness. However, we took a nice, although touristy day tour on a boat yesterday. The tour visited some families on the floating islands and a woman showed us her home. It had a solar panel where she could power one light bulb and her tv. The islands are built on the roots of these long reeds that grow in the water. They ... read more

After a night bus from Cusco, we arrived in Puno very early in the morning around 4:30am. We hung out at the bus station for about 15 minutes, just enough time to catch a tout offering a tour of the floating islands and a "friend" who has a hostel. We hopped in a cab and were off to the hostel. After about an hour nap, we were up and ready to head to the floating island tour! We headed down to the docks at Lake Titicaca - the largest lake in South America and at 3800m altitude, the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. Hopped on a boat and off we went to Uros Islands. The Uros Islands are a bunch of man made islands constructed of reeds. Everything on the islands were constructed of ... read more

From March 18th we were going to be on a 3 week GAP tour, which meant that for 21 days we weren't going to have to organize any travel or accommodation - that was left to our leader, Fernando. Bolivia had left us feeling a bit drained so this was a bit of a relief! We met our group, which comprised of 5 English, 5 Australians, 3 Kiwis and an American. Bizarrely, all of us bar the American were eventually heading to London. The next morning a bus picked us up outside our hotel (which in itself felt like a luxury!) for the journey to Peru. We were heading for Puno, a city on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake. The journey was about 7 hours and involved crossing a small part ... read more

Hallo ihr Lieben, diesmal kommt meine Live-Berichterstattung aus Puno am Titicacasee. :-) Vom Colca Canyon aus fuhren wir nach Puno – der “Hauptstadt” am Titicacasee. Der Titicacasee ist auf 3900 m der hoechstgelegene, schiffbare See der Welt, den sich Bolivien und Peru teilen. Umso gespannter waren wir, was uns erwarten wuerde. Puno an sich ist eine sehr unspektakulaere Stadt. Vor allem am 25.12. waren die meisten Geschaefte geschlossen und so ging es jeder gemuetlich an, um sich erstmal wieder an die Hoehe hier zu gewoehnen. Gestern ging es dann mit dem Schiff 3 Stunden lang ueber den Titicaca See zur Isla Taquile. Auf dieser Insel leben noch ein paar 1000 Einwohner, die ihre eigenen Gewohnheiten und Sitten haben. So tragen Maenner, die verheiratet sind, andere Muetzen, als Maenner, die noch Single sind. Eine Stunde lang marschierten ... read more

We were a little worried because we got some rain yesterday and today started out with a thick cloud cover. But as the day progressed the cloud cover burned off and it turned out to be a perfect day to tour the islands of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is unique in that it is the highest navigable lake in the world(3812m). It stretches for 8,300 sq km and borders two countries (Peru and Bolivia). The average temperature of the lake is 10deg and swimming is not recommended. We were told that the only reason it does not ice over at nite is that it absorbs so much heat from the sun during the day. And, boy is the trout (trucha) great! We started our day with a nice breakfeast at the Totorani Inn and then ... read more