Lake Titicaca y the Isla de Taquile

On Saturday night we caught a overnight bus to Puno and spent Sunday on Lake Titicaca and then caught an overnight bus back that night to Cusco.  It was a fast trip and one that I wish I could have extended but you know there is tons of things I wish I could have gone and seen in Peru, I'm glad we made it down at least for one day.

They gave a little demonstration on how they make their islands.  The guide was pretty funny.





In Peru almost everywhere we went the houses had solar panels, even on floating islands. Inside they had a tv and cell phones.  I like how they stored things--the knives and other random things like that  were just sticking in the wall of the houses.

They were weird to walk on, like walking on a sponge or trampoline.







We of course took a boat ride.

Moses (the kid on the left) and the other kid--never caught his name--were wrestling and rough housing and running into us and all the other tourists, which the other tourists were not so appreciative of so Leo spent our whole boat ride playing with them. We did get that they were four (they spoke Spanish but it was intermixed with a native language.) Moses had a super runny nose and I had wet wipes and Leo wiped his nose because one of the tourists Moses kept climbing over was worried it would get all over him.  We're good parents like that. Anyway, it made Leo and I both pretty homesick for our kids.

They used to live by catching and selling this tiny fish that is native to the lake but some darn Canadians back 80 yrs ago or so introduced trout and it's eaten most of the native fish so now only the tribe that lives on the island is allowed to catch the native fish--and their limited to what they eat.  I wonder why they don't catch trout and sell that?  Anyway, mostly they survive by tourists now.  At least that's what our guide told us.

Then we headed to the Isla de Taquile.  We had lunch there served by a local family. It was really good--fish and bread and a salad.  The island was beautiful and we got to walk around it before heading back to Puno.







They get everything ferried in from the boats and everyone was carrying stuff back up to their houses--even little kids like 5 and 6 yr olds.



Highest mountain in S. America off across the lake in Bolivia.

I guess this island (I'm not sure if it was other islands in the area as well) is famous for it's weaving and knitting.  And it was some of the best I saw in all of Peru.  I actually bought another table runner here because I loved it so much.



The kids all learn to knit as soon as they can hold needles pretty much and the quality of men's knitting is how women would judge if they were worth marrying or not.  And the belt the men wear are made by their wives--and their wives weave their own hair into it--the idea is kind of like a chastity belt, a way to always remember their wife and be faithful.














This kids was using a squashed plastic pop bottle to roll a ring down the hill.  I tried to catch a better picture but missed.  We saw a lot of young kids (12 or under) selling things all along the pathway.  Maybe because it was Sunday and they were out of school.







Tourist photo op--have to pay for the photo.  Ah well, I liked the sheep.

I thought the water looked beautiful for swimming but no one mentioned or talked about swimming (other than when they were talking about building their islands), I wonder if the water is too cold or why swimming isn't more a thing there for tourists to do--or maybe the outhouses over the lake deter people?












When we got back to Puno we walked to the plaza and made ourselves some Nutella sandwiches.  And then we had a lot of time to kill and we didn't really have any money with us (since I bought the table runner) so we called Mom on Skype and we talked to all the kids and wished Elena happy birthday.   If you want to buy souvenirs (just FYI), they're way less expensive in Puno than Cusco.