The Islands of Lake Titicaca

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We arrived in Puno early evening, after a strange bus trip, which amongst other things, left early, didn´t have a toilet that was promised, had passangers arguing with the ticket collector, stopped plenty of times and without warning or without being told by anyone from the bus company an hour out from Puno we had to jump off our bus and jump on to the bus in front (which was moving), whilst we prayed that they had moved our luggage. And of course the new bus we moved to had no seats left so we had to stand the final hour. It is the joys of South America! I think when you buy the ticket from the company if you asked them does the bus trip involve intergalactic space travel they will probably tell you it does, just to get the sale!
We didn´t catch a glimpse of the beautiful Lake Titicaca until the following morning, the evening in Puno was very cold. The town of Puno isn´t that beautiful itself but it was busy enough with a few nice restaurants, we found a nice one with a fire going, had some mulled wine and I tried the Kingfish curry which was a nice surprise. We booked our tour out to the islands for the following day.
Lake Titicaca is South Americas largest navigatable lake, it borders Peru and Bolivia, at 3821m of altitude and 8300 square kilometres it is massive, the water is a lovely blue when the sun is shining and the skies look beautiful.
Our boat was comfortable and we first made for the floating islands of the Uros people, whose islands are in the bay not too far from Puno. The people speak Aymari, unlike the Quechua spoken by the highland people and introduced by the Incas. The islanders use the reeds to make everything, their island, houses, boats, they can even eat them. There are many islands but each would only be less than half the size of a football pitch. The leader of the island explained and demonstrated to us the process of making the island. It really was fascinating. I won´t go in to all the detail, but basically they use the soil that the reeds grow in (which floats when the rainy season comes) to make like large floating bricks, which they place together then tie together using stakes and rope, then they place reeds on top, a load then the next at 180 degrees. So basically it is 1 metre of floating earth and then a metre depth of reed and then the island is anchored. It is amazing how they are made. The sensation of walking on them is very strange and soft. The leader was quite humorous as well, demonstrating that if the island gets too big (only about 5 families on each island) and he can´t maintain control he can get the saw out and cut his island in half, and if he has trouble with the neighbors he can just pull the anchor up and move away.
After a brief visit we then headed for the 3 hour trip to Amantani Island, the weather was lovely, the sun shining on the blue waters. On the island we were at the community of Incatiana, (there are 10 communities on the island) where our host Sebastian met us. He was a lovely old man, Deb thought he was very cute, he was only about 5 foot high but had a wonderful shuffle when he walked and he was very nice. We had another couple also staying with us there as well. The lady was from Lima so she helped with some of the Spanish translation. The people on the island speak Quechua unlike the Uros people. Sebastions wife Antonia had lunch ready for us also. It was lovely soup and then a dish of ground vegetables which were very tasty, some of them I did not recognise but were very tasty none the less. In the afternoon we headed up to Pachatata, the ancient ruins. It was a hard enough climb at the altitude but the view up there was superb, it was quite overcast but gave a lovely sunset. I can only imagine what it must be like on a clear day. Looking to the Bolivian side you could see the white snowcapped mountains.
Sebastians house had the most brilliant views and the island itself was so tranquil and quiet, without barking dogs or cars. In the evening we were dressed traditionally (very funny) and Antonia brought us to a little fiesta with the tourists and locals. It was a bit of fun and quite enjoyable, particularly seeing everyone in the different dress. We had a good nights sleep and some lovely sweet bread for breakfast before it was time to say goodbye to our friendly hosts. The stay on the island was surprisingly very very enjoyable, I guess we hadn´t thought much about the trip before but we were both really enjoying ourselves and the peacefulness.
The second day we ventured to Taquile, where we walked up to the main square, it was similar to Amantani with its peacefulness, but the people dressed differently. Particularly the women, with both sexes having different attire depending on whether you are married or single. We returned late afternoon where we relaxed in the hotel and looked forward to the buffet breakfast they did. We would make up fresh cheese and avocado rolls.
The agency said that we would pay for the tour on the first day, but they never asked. We thought at some stage they would but they never did. We ended up having to go back to the agency in the evening to pay them, we just hope he didn´t pocket the money for himself.
We both were very happy with the trip and going to Bolivia next to see some more of the beautiful lake.

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