21.03.2008 Los Uros / Lago Titicaca

"Lake Titicaca is the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. The origin of the name Titicaca is unknown. It has been translated as "Rock Puma", allegedly because of its resemblance to the shape of a puma hunting a rabbit, combining words from the local languages Quechua and Aymara, and as well as translated as "Crag of Lead." Titicaca is notable for a population of people who live on the Uros, a group of 42 or so artificial islands made of floating reeds (totora, a reed that abounds in the shallows of the lake). "

Full article of Wikipedia

Our excurcion to these islands started in the afternoon. We took a boat with a guide to visit two of the islands, the boat ride from Puno took about 30min. On the boat the guide explained about the every day life on the islands and on the islands he explained how they were made. We arrived in the late afternoon sunlight, the view was absolutely stunning, combination of the colorful traditional inka costumes and the dry reed color against the blue sky. To go to the second island we used a boat made of totora, that of course we volunteered to row. Not as easy as it looks like, especially at 3850m... On the second island we looked around the handcrafts they sell and finally took a boat to the island, Khantati, where we were going to stay for the night.

Once on our island we met Julian and Melina and their daughter Natalia (4 years), one of the six families living on this island. They showed us our hut, large one room made of totora (like all the buildings on the islands) filled with inka covers. In the evening we had a delicious dinner prepared by Melina, rice, potatoes, trout and of course mate (tea) with coca leaves. We had a good intention to offer a bottle of wine to share at the dinner, but unfortunately Julian had ulcer and Melina´s christian sisterhood forbid her from alcohol... That´s ok, we drunk the bottle anyway. There were practically no lights on the island, we had our frontals with us, but as soon as the sun was gone everybody went to bed. As we had planned, it was a full moon surrounded by plenty of stars and giving us light. We did our max to stay awake as late as possible, but the wine and the calm atmosphere were stronger, we were in bed by 21h... The night went fine, except the mattress was a lot higher at the sides, so we kept rolling in the middle, also the wild birds don´t sleep during the night...

The family woke up around 4h00 am, we managed to sleep until 6h30... Surprise of the day was that Jo got to wear the traditional inka dress (wait till you get the photos!!). After a delicious and huge breakfast the tourist circus started! The Uros mostly live from tourism, they sell their handcraft and row the tourists from one island to the other. On Khantati there was a tourist boat every hour. While the adults took care of the tourists, we made friends with Natalia and Janina, the two little girls of the island. They loved throwing reed balls... and wanted us to make them non stop... At midday we took a boat back to Puno, bringing back with us excellent memories and hundreds of photos. Now we are waiting for the bus to Cusco, where we are going to spent four days before taking off to Machu Picchu.