17-9-2010: Day 7, Puno - Los Uros, Lake Titicaca

Overnight busing and arrived in Puno at 5am, just around dawn and able to see the beautiful sunrise.

The sun was rising over Lake Titicaca which grows totora reeds.

The sun had risen with a hut made by totora reeds at the pier.


The fairytale-like floating islands made by totora reeds in Lake Titicaca.

Everything´s made by totora reeds, houses, boats, the islands themselves.

The President of this floating island gave us an introduction on how the islands are built. Here was a miniture of the islands.

They even gave us totora reeds for a snack! According to the Presdient, this is their major fruit.

A beautiful view of the fairytale islands and surroundings.

After almost a week in Cusco and the Sacred Valley area, I finally moved to another spot in Perú, Puno and Lake Titicaca. I took an overnight bus to Puno at 10pm, arrived in Puno at 5:00am. It was a comfortable ride, though a bit too short for sleeping. But it was fine, except someone (I suspected the guy who sat next to me) stole my bottle of water. Silly, silly. I went to the pier by motortaxi, and en route I stopped by and bought some fruits for my soon host family in Isla Taquile. Dawn was absolutely stunning, especially the air and sky was unusually clear. We hopped on the boat at around 7am, and started sailing around 7:45am. Our first stop was Los Uros, which are some man-made floating islands in Lake Titicaca that have been in the region for a long long time. When we arrived one of the islands, the local women greeted us warmly by waving their arms and said in Aymará, "Welcome!" When I first stepped on the island, it felt so funny as the ground is very springy! As I toured around the island, I accidentally stepped on a rotten part and I fell into the water! Thankfully it was just my legs and I managed to climb right back on the firm part. But it was such an unique experience! While we were back on the boat, the local men kept chewing coca leaves as if eating chips! So I digged out my bag of coca leaves and imitated them. One of them gave me some ´yota´ which is made by the ashes of natural plants such as quinoa and acts as a catalyst to release the effective properties of coca leaves. It is a very great tradition of the Andina cultures, and we shall respect that rather than fixating it as a drug, becuase it is not.