Lake Titicaca

Being in Peru, we could not miss the popular destination of Lake Titicaca. We have all heard about it since we were kids in school - the highest navigable lake in the world at 12,507 feet. Puno, the city that most people stay in before going out onto the lake is a gross city with not much culture or things to see. However, the lake was fun to see. We did a 2 day tour and rode a boat out to the islands. We stopped first at the Uros islands, or the floating islands. The islands are home to the Uros tribe, who are people that pre-date the Incan civilization. These islands are floating because they are actually man made. They are made out of totora, which is a sort of weed that grows in the lake. They use this plant for just about everything here. They eat it and they use it to build the islands, their boats and their homes. My big question here was why would a civilization want to build their own islands when there is plenty of land to use without having to do that. Apparently, they were being chased and needed to protect themselves, so they went out into the lake on boats. For a long time, they lived on their boats, which were made of this totora plant. Then they started building the islands. It´s a cool story and they were cool to see, but most of the kids go into town for school and then don't seem to come back. Because of this, I kind of wonder how much longer they'll be around. The people here speak their native language of Aymara.



We next went to the real island of Amantani. The people here speak a little Spanish, but even more Quechua. Each group was assigned to a family to take into their homes and feed us and give us a place to sleep for the night. Our family was nice enough, but we were always fed food in our room and not invited to eat with them. Other people did eat with their families, so this was a little weird. We were happy to have that place to stay, though and to see their culture. We walked up to a high point on the island to a Pachatata temple at 4200 meters above sea level. The island is divided out for land to the families and their lands are separated by rock walls. During the season when they gather the food, they will actually stay up here and sleep in these fields in a tiny room with a stone wall around them. They eat mostly carbs on this island, we discovered when every meal was potatoes, pasta or rice. The soups were wonderful, though. That night, the family brought us clothes to wear that are like the typical costumes of the locals (they wear these whenever they leave the house). It was fun to get to dress up in those clothes and go to a dance with typical music. The mother took us here and kept getting Scott and I to get up and dance with her. She was really cute.


The next day we went to Taquile island. Here, they also have their typical dress, but it has more meaning. On Amantani, they wear them more as decoration, but on Taquile, all of the colors have a different meaning. For example, if you are married or single, you would wear different colors (skirts for women). The men have hats that are different color depending on their status and they even point the tip to one side or another if they are single and seeing someone or not.