24th September Puno
Early in the morning we took tuk tucks from our hotel to the port where we took a boat on Lake Titicaca to see the floating islands. We spent an hour on a floating island, home to 5 families, where they explained how the floating islands originated in the 1640's when the spaniards invaded. The local people were hiding in the reeves from the Spanish and realised if they layered the reeves they would float. They also dressed us in their traditional brightly coloured clothes and showed us their homes- 10x10ft huts made from reeves but they had electricity!
We then took the boat to another floating island where we drank coffee and looked at the crafts they had for sale. Back onto the boat for 2hours to reach Taqulie, further along the mainland, for rainbow trout lunch and then an hours hike looking across the beautiful Lake.
Another hour or so on the boat to arrive at Luquina Chico, which was out on the peninsula, a village of 90families. In the village, 23 families take on gadventures home stay groups once or twice a week for extra income to their farming.
We met our Mammy and Daddy for the night and went to our home. We met their three youngest children: Denis 13, Lucy 11, and Sonya 3. Their eldest son was studying tourism in Puno.
They're home consisted of two one bedroom buildings for guests, a store shed, a small building for the kitchen and a one up one down building for their family home. The room we stayed in was really nice and even had it's own ensuit with a shower - but no running water! Mammy and Lucy cooked us a huge dinner and spoke with the Daddy through Lara translating!