Lake Titicaca - Staying with local folk

On your marks!!
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So off we went on a 6ish hour trip from the Dizzy heights of La Paz the equally high Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca.

The coach journey went for once as expected and even the craziness of going through the border control from Bolivia to Peru passed without much incident. The only slightly odd part of the journey was having to get off the coach and onto a row boat so we could be transported across a river while our bus got onto a equally wobbly boat so it to could join us on the other side.

Footballs hard at 4100m
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So we made it to Puno and made arrangements for the next day, a tour of the highest, largest lake in the world with a home stay on one of the islands thrown in for good measure!! or something like that (by this point in the trip i don't really know what is going on).

We set off at 7:30am the next day via a tuk-tuk race using local pedal power for the docks and onto our boat for the 4 hour journey to the first island. Me and Mel were in the tuk-tuk called Gladiator which didn't win mainly due to a weight disadvantage!!

New Family
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The one thing that strikes you about Lake Titicaca apart from its size is the color of the water it´s a deep blue color that looks like it must be artificial.

On the boat our guide for the next few days explained what was going to happen and it was roughly something like this:

1:Go to Tequille island hike up to the town for lunch and panoramic views

2:Go to Mantana Island to stay with a local family for the night

Do you wanna dance
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3:Go to the islands of the reed people and see how they live, followed by lunch on the boat and home

Tequille Island

We got off the boat and did our 2k trek up the side of the island to the summit and the main square of the Tequille people, which was a very enjoyable walk with lovely panoramic views of the lake and mountains. At the top our guide explained the way society worked , men doing all the knitting and and women spinning the yarn for them to knit. Apparently the colour and pompom size of the hat indicatated if they were single and how important they were. You know what they say about men with big pompoms.............anyway apparently the way for the women to test if the male is a good mate of not is to steal the man's hat and fill it with water. If it's waterproof then she's onto a winner. If only life was this easy for everyone. We ate a very enjoyable lunch of fresh trout and veg followed by explosive tea (no i am not really sure why they call it that either) and made our way down the hill to meet our boat.

The Reed people
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Mantana Island (not sure if this is the correct spelling of the island)

We were off to next island , about 2 hours away and to meet our new "families" for the next few days. We were given a briefing by our guide including a brief lesson in the local dialect "Quechua"and what was going to happen over the next day or so. Me and Mel's new Mum for the day was Hilda who met us when we got off the boat and led us up the island to her home to meet her 2 brothers, 1 sister and parents. Our room was clean and very cute even down to the front door that was about half the size of me. We dropped our stuff and relaxed for 30 mins before Hilda would show us up to the local football field to meet all the other guests on the island.

One thing that all the families do for there guests is make them wear hats that the family has knitted so they can tell who belongs to who. Apparently to them we all look alike hmmm. Anyway off we went to the football field and arrived early so we played Frisbee with a few of the locals while everyone else in silly hats turned up. Once everyone had arrived we were challenged to a game of football by the locals. This seemed like a good idea at the time but I was forgetting that were at over 4100m above sea level and everyone else was from non football playing nations i.e Canada, Australia and New Zealand it wasn't the best idea in the world. Two lung replacements later and a lot of getting run around by people half my size and we were back to Hilda's for dinner with the family.

Before dinner we played cards with Fernando and William the two young boys of the family while Hilda cooked up a veg soup followed by rice and a veg curry, so many carbohydrates so little time!! Feeling slightly bloated and very tired from running around like an idiot earlier Hilda revealed what the nights entertainment would be, dressing up in local gear and dancing around like fools to local music all in the name of culture.

So that's what we did. Mel wore a very fetching white blouse, big flowery dress and matching veil while i sported a red poncho and trusty knitted hat from before. The dancing can be described in one word knackering. Basically you fling yourself around with a partner for what seems like an eternity before collapsing in a pool of sweat at the end, lots of fun though. On the way home we got to admire the amazing night sky. It felt like you could see more stars here than anywhere else in the world, a really beautiful experience. Off to bed knacked but satisfied after a great day. So up again pre 8 to a hearty breakfast of pancakes and jam cooked by Hilda's fair hand and after a farewell to our new friends onwards to the last island of our Titicaca trip, the islands of the floating people Uros.

Uros Island

This was again a completely different experience to the first two islands having its own culture and way of life. The islanders have basically built their own island out of the reeds that grow in lake Titicaca, everything is made from these reeds including houses and boats. There are several islands like this hosting around 1500 people. Apparently if they fall out with people on the island they just cut their bit of the island away from the rest and float off to a different part of the lake. We got to look around and watch them in action as they made stuff from the reeds, we even got a spin in one of the very impressive boats they had made.

After all this we returned to our boat for picnic of fresh avocados, tomatoes, cheeses and ham and the 2 hour journey home satisfied at having a really interesting and fun time with the people of Lake Titicaca. Def one of the highlights so far.

But boy was i looking forward to a hot shower!!!!!