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On Uros, this little girl targeted me for the sale of her drawings.
She knew just the right sales pitch to use on me:
3 soles to help her with school. |
Before coming to Lake Titicaca, I heard mixed reviews. Some people seemed to love it and some people seemed to not think too much of it. After coming here, I think it would be very easy to come here and miss some of the best parts if you did not make the right choices. I think I had some luck in making the right choices due to another fortunate word of mouth event.
While in Arequipa, I met a couple that had just come from Puno, the main port city for Lake Titicaca in Peru. They recommended that I stay near the Plaza de Armas as it was a good area with nice options for eating. Their recommendation was a good one, because if you get very far from the Plaza de Armas, Puno is not such a pretty city.
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| Carnival celebration in Puno at the Plaza de Armas |
I had two things that I wanted to do while in the area: visit islands and ruins. The hotel had a couple of tours available. You could visit one, two or three islands. After talking with the woman at the hotel, I opted for visiting two islands. I think it would be easy for someone to think they would see what they wanted to see by visiting one island, but that would be a mistake. The islands are quite different.
Los Uros
Los Uros are man-made islands with approximately 2,000 inhabitants. The islands are made using the roots of a floating tube like grass as the buoyancy and the grass cut and laid as the floor. They have some basic infrastructure on the island, such as, primary school, a basic health clinic, a government building and two churches. I believe everything is floating.
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| Home and kitchen (round) on Uros |
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| Demonstrating how the islands and structures are built |
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| The Mercedes-Benz of the Uros. The pontoons are built with plastic bottles wrapped in weaving. |
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| The women of the island |
Taquille Island
Taquille Island is about two hours by boat from Puno in the middle of Lake Titicaca. Taquille offers brilliant 360 degree views of Lake Titicaca. From here, you can see into both Peru and Bolivia. You can see the ocean like expanse of deep blue water. The depth in Lake Titicaca reaches as much as 280 meters. A person that does not reach the interior islands of Lake Titicaca cannot appreciate the real beauty of this place.
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| Looking back towards Peru mainland from Taquille Island |
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| Looking down where the boat dropped us; clear blue water |
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| Looking towards Bolivia |
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| Another view towards mainland Peru |
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| Terraced agriculture. This view reminds me of the Italian Riviera |
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| The view from where we ate Lunch |
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| A baby lamb where we ate lunch |
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| A view of a stone arch and the boat dock from where we departed |
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| A duck, I saw quite a few, especially in the grassy areas |
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| View of mainland on our return voyage |
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| View of mainland on our return voyage |
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| View of mainland on our return voyage with grassy shoreline |
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