Isla Los Uros

After Machu Picchu, we got on yet another bus (yay...) up to Puno, a town on the edge of Lake Titicaca (trying to hold it in, tryinggg...BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA okay I couldn't do it, that name is just too good). While the lake itself was really cool, Puno did NOT make the list of my favorite places. There were multiple reasons for this other than it being plain and boring, but I won't go into that (except that when you offer someone a free cup of coffee, you should probably let them know that adding milk to it makes it full price; that would've been a useful little tidbit - especially when the coffee itself is squirted out of a Gatorade bottle).

Anyway, after a morning that went nothing like planned, we boarded a tour boat to Isla Los Uros, a set of man-made floating reed islands on the lake. The ancestry of the Uro people goes back before the Incans arrived in the region, and they speak a language called Aymara (but also Spanish). They make the islands themselves and somehow anchor them down so they don't keep floating all over the lake when it's windy. EVERYTHING is made of reeds - the islands, their boats, their houses and furniture, and the handicrafts that they sell. Most of the islands also have lookout towers (made of reeds, of course) but I'm not sure what they're supposed to be looking out for? Even if they saw something coming, what would they do.......? Interesante.

On the island, we listened to a joint presentation by our tour guide and the island's headman, who explained their customs and demonstrated how they make the islands. After that, the people on the island (there are about 6-8 families on most of them) invited us into their huts and talked to us, and then asked us what we wanted to buy, those tricksters!!! But besides that, going to Isla Los Uros was an amazing experience, and I loved being able to visit with people who's culture was so unbelievably different than mine. Plus now I can say I've been on the highest navigable lake in the world!

Being welcomed onto the island.

The harbor. Peruvian and Bolivian flags.

Isla Los Uros!

Random side note: our friend at the bus station in Tacna thought he was so funny when he told us that Titi was the Peruvian side and Caca was the Bolivian side. Until we explained why Titi wasn't much better.

That's it for Peru! Other than the 50-hour journey back to Santiago...I had such an amazing trip (made more amazing by the fact that Peru actually has spicy food). I WANNA GO BACKKK.