After spending wonderful few days in Cusco we decided to embark on another adventure on the Peruvian land, this time to the infamous lake Titicaca islands. W left Cusco on a night bus and arrived in Puno at 05:00 upon arrival at the station we where greeted by our tour guide who took us straight to the hotel where we allowed t get couple of hours kip. Initially they tried to charge us 25 soles for the room but we said we were happy to rest on the sofa. Minutes later the manager of the hotel come in and offered us the room for free which we took with no questions asked.
We left at 09:00am to start the tour and got on a boat to the islands. First stop was one of several floating Islands in the Urus. The Uros are a group around 70 man-made islands floating in Lake Titicaca. The islands are quite amazing in their design. They are made from Totora reeds, which grows in abundance in Lake Titicaca and the Islanders use for pretty much everything, from the bed of the island itself to their huts, for fuel and even a source of food! The islands are anchored to stop them floating away, unless of course they don’t like their neighbours in which case they up-anchor and float away!
Basically all the islands are the same and are definitely geared towards tourists parting with their money on all sorts of tat, from hand-made model reed boats to rides on their actual reed boats. What was funny was when we got back on our boat to leave, all the women on the island stood in a line singing ‘Row, row, row your boat’ in about 4 different languages for us while waving us goodbye, we couldn’t stop laughing for ages!
Next up was a 3 hour journey to the Island of Amantani, where we were to stay the night with a ‘host’ family. When we arrived it seemed all the village was out to greet us. We gathered around and were assigned a family. We got Sabina and her family. She was a very sweet lady with 4 kids. All the woman on the Island wear the traditional dress of a bowler hat and what appears to be a very heavy layered skirt along with a shirt and cardigan. Most of the peoples on these islands are of Aymara origin.
Sabina showed us the way to our “new” home. When we arrived she first introduced us to the kids and then showed us our new room where we made ourselves comfortable while waiting for our lunch. Lunch was ready an hour after our arrival. This consisted of quinoa soup, boiled potatoes that looked like wobbly carrots in shape and pan-fried goats cheese. Potatoes are very hot in Peru, as they have over 1000 varieties and our dinner only consisted of 5 different kinds! Straight after we finished our last potato Sabina brought us Moonha (phonetically spelt) tea which was similar to mint tea but with a hint of perfume at the end.
Next she unraveled a blanked full of hand-made knitted hats and gloves. She said each one took 2 weeks to knit and went on to explain a lot of the unique designs, which were inspired from island life. At first we thought she might be offering us a gift to take home, as she did actually say ‘choose a gift to take home‘ but only after we chose what we would like we realised that we had to pay! Very cheeky really but we ended up buying 2 hats from her! Pressure sales always work on us!!
After lunch we had a little snooze before exploring the island. We hiked to a peak where a stone monument to ‘Pachamama’ lay (Mother Earth) and from here you colies on the worls mostuld see on the adjacent peak a stone monument to ‘Pachatata’ (Father Earth). From both peaks there were amazing views across the island, which was extremely rugged but very beautiful. You have to remember that this island lies on the worlds highest navigable lake, at an altitude of 3800m, and therefore any physical exertion, such as hiking, was quite hard to accomplish. You’d have thought we’d be used to the high altitude by now and although we suffered no ‘altitude sickness’ we still found walking and trekking quite tough on the old lungs!
Later, when we made it back to our home we had supper, which consisted of more quinoa soup, another selection of potatoes all washed down with some more Moonha tea. After supper we were supposed to join the islanders for a night of ‘tourist’ entertainment of dancing, singing and dressing up in ‘traditional’ clothes. We were both so knackered after the whole day, plus it was absolutely freezing outside, that we decided to have an early night. I think we both saw a sigh of relief from Sabina and her son, who would have had to walk us to the hall in complete darkness!
Covered in about 8 blankets we slept like logs and only awoke by the knocking on the door by Sabinas eldest daughter. Breakfast was made up of 3 pieces of something resembling fried potato bread and washed down with some more Moonha tea. After breakie one of Sabina’s sons followed us to our room and gave us some Moonha tea leaves, which we accepted and thought was a sweet offering. Minutes later we again realised this wasn’t a gift either but another piece of merchandise that set us back 4 soles!
We left for the port, said our goodbyes to our host family, and set off for Isla Taquile where the whole island was getting ready for some kind of celebration… more singing, more dancing and more drinking, way-hey!
So off we went to explore the old town. Right from the start we loved it. It has a ‘Cuban’ feel to it and is a mixture of old dilapidated colonial buildings amongst some very newly, and expertly refurbished ‘old’ colonial buildings! There are also some ‘no-go zones’ but luckily we had our radars on. It’s a colourful town: from the painted local buses (Diablo Rojos) to the painted houses. Ok most are in need of a lick of paint, or in some cases a complete re-build but it all just adds to the character. And the locals seem quite friendly too, which always helps!