Our last blog entry for Peru ! The stunning lake Titicaca, one of the highest lakes in the world….

We arrived in Puno 3 days ago. It’s basically a border town without much interest apart from its location on the Peruvian border of lake Titicaca.We decided to do a 2 day tour of the lake islands in order to have the chance of staying a night with some of the locals.

Our first stop was on one of the man made floating islands, which is home to the Uros tribe (about 2000 people) pre-dating the Inca civilisation. These incredible floating islands are made from totora reeds – several meters of reeds are piled on top of the dense floating roots all tied together. As a result the surface of the island is uneven, extremely wet and it’s a bit like walking on a water bed !! The reeds are used as a home, food and transportation for the habitants and we didn’t miss the opportunity of taking a ride in one of their huge woven boats. The Uros tribe is now mainly living off tourism, but they proudly preserve their culture and traditions, which resisted the Inca and Spanish invasions. They call themselves kot-suña (people of the lake), and consider themselves the owners of the lake and its waters !! They live in community, with about 6-8 families per island and support each other during hard times.They were fascinating – never seen anything like it before. heck out the pictures !!

Our second stop was the island of Amantani. We were welcomed by our family at our arrival. In our case a lovely old lady, Francisca, speaking only Quechua, her timid 16 year old daughter, Elsa and cheeky 4 year old son, David. For one day we got the chance to share their life – simple, hard and without any luxury. Their house was very basic, without electricity or running water but they were incredibly welcoming and did everything to make us feel at home. A refreshing and humbling experience ! Our only issue was the size of everything…. Andy felt like he was living in a hobbit’s home – everything was tiny and the door frames were hardly reaching his chest!!!

In the evening, a party was organised for our tour and we got a chance to dress up in the traditional dresses : multi-layered colourful skirts for me and poncho for Andy. The dancing exhausted us – each song lasted for about 10mn, and the dancing involved jumping repeatedly backwards and forwards. It seemed that there was only one type of dancing, so after 2 hours of backwards and forwards at the sound of pan pipes we decided to discreetly exit the party… We made it back to our house god knows how, since everything was pitch black, and tucked ourselves under about 6 blankets, fully dressed to fight the cold (we really appreciated the beautiful invention of central heating!).

The following day, after taking our last meal with our family we headed off to the island of Taquile. An incredibly scenic route across terraced fields took us to the top of this island, famous for its handwoven textiles and clothing, which are regarded as among the highest-quality handicrafts in Peru (bloody expensive too!). But the surprising thing is that for once the work of spinning and weaving is primarily done by the men !! They also wear distinctive red and white ‘Santa hats’ whose colours and patterns change to indicate whether they’re single and married… better system than a dating agency !!

In summary, we loved it ! Don’t go to lake Titicaca without visiting the islands. They’re amazing…A great way to leave Peru !