Lake Titicaca, Peru March 2005

On Saturday morning we left Cuzco via a bus for Lake Titicaca in Puno, Peru. This has many memorable trivia. It is the highest navigational lake in the world while it is also South America’s biggest Lake and largest in the world above 2000metors(x3 for ft.) It also has a Bolivia side to it too. There are many Islands and we visited three to stay on the last one with a Peruvian family overnight.

We stayed at the Don Julio Hostel which was okay, much construction going on at this time. It was a family run business and we got to know them.

One of the Islands was Isla Flotantes of the Uros people. The Islands are built by using many layers of totora reed that grows abundantly .It was obvious the lives of the Uros are totally interwoven with their crafts, boats ,and their home huts. We even got to take a trip to the next Island on the paddled reed boat. Isla Amantani was the next stop, and this required an overnight,

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We were met and were housed by a family for the 24 hours. Adobe house with an out house and a potty in the room for night time. Cecilia was the name of our guest house representative and she was 17 yrs. Old. She lived with her mom and grandma and two sisters and her baby boy who was 12 months named Corkey. This made us use our Spanish much more. It was freezing cold at night and we had to buy hats that Cecila made while walking. We were to have three meals of whatever they eat. Peruvians have a lot of soup as their main meal and carbohydrates such as rice and rolls. The Islanders had a great dance that night where the tourists had to wear traditional garb. It is amazing how it puts one into their culture by wearing their clothes.Looks like we are on the carbohydrate diet??

The next day we met at the boat and we had one more Island to go to Isla Taquile. This Island is known for their weavers and many of the men did the weaving especially taken pride in the tightly woven caps that look like night caps. It is 1 km. Wide and about 6 km. long and they are Quechena-speaking and on the hillside there are pre-Inca ruins. We had a little lesson in weaving and the different designs on how to tell if Male-female were single or married. We also had a good lunch of soup and mucho carbohydrates their usual in take.

We then took the boat back to Puno a three hour ride and spent the night again in a different hotel because the Don Julio was full of guests that didn’t leave because three of them had food poisoning.

The next morning we all went separate ways. Betty and Kevin Scott Allie and her mom came with us on a bus to Bolivia.

In the covina(kitchen)

Lake Titicaca