Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca is a large lake located on the border of Peru and Bolivia. It sits (12,500 ft) above sea level, making it the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. By volume of water, it is also the largest lake in South America. It was the most sacred body of water in the Inca empire and now is the natural separation between Peru and Bolivia, I visited 3 of the islands on the lake: Uros, Amatani, and Taquille.  It is an 8 hr. bus ride to Puno(where the lake is) from Cusco.I traveled to the lake two times: once in June and again with my son, Peter in January. 

Floating islands:
The best-known of the islands dotting Titicaca's surface are the Uros, floating islands of reed named after the Indians who inhabited them. The Uros islanders fish, hunt birds and live off lake plants.The most important plant element in their life being elake reeds they use for their houses, boats and even as the base of their  islands.  The bottoms of the reed islands decay in the water and are replaced from the top with new layers, making a spongy surface that is a bit difficult to walk on.

The following photos are of my 1st trip to Uros in June:

Arriving on our boat to the island

Patriarch of the island explaining how they build the foundation with the reeds

Each island is inhabited by families

Boats built out of dried reeds

Saying goodbye

Musicians on our boat

My 2nd trip to Uros island was with my son, Peter, in January:

Darling little island girl watching the crazy Gringo up in the fish!

I bought a beautiful tapestry from her for Peter; $30 and incredible!

Flamingos on the island

Lady waiting for her order at the restaurant we had lunch at

After our boat trip to Uros Island, Peter and I had lunch at one of the many make shift restaurants at the lake’s entrance. I ordered the Lomo Saltado(my favorite Peruvian dish) and Peter ordered fried pork(upon my recommendation) with about 10 different kinds of potatoes that ranged in color from yellow to black! He saved the pork fat and the potatoes that he couldn’t eat and we carried the little box until we ran into a dog that looked like he might enjoy the fat so we gave him just the fat and held onto the potatoes. We walked back to our hostal where we had stored our bags as we were going to take another tour that afternoon, and added the little box of left over potatoes to our pile of things…

Peter and I were going to take the all night bus back to Cusco from Puno so we went by taxi from our hostal to the bus station where we had a wait of a little over an hour. Peter all of a sudden realized that we had forgotten our little box of potatoes! He told me that he was going to walk back to the hostal to get it! I could not believe this! This was insanity…taking a chance of missing the bus for a couple of potatoes…?! Well he left and returned with time to spare so all was still OK! And the overnight bus ride was exceptionally comfortable: large, reclining leather seats that reminded me of 1^st class on an airline except there were no waitresses, no food, no entertainment…

About a week after Peter had returned to Hawaii and I was fixing myself a curry dinner one evening, I remembered the left over potatoes from Puno that Peter had made a special trip back to the hostal to retrieve, so using my sniffer,I made sure they were still Ok to eat, and put them in my coconut milk broth. It was delicious and the perfect addition to my soup! I had to tell Peter that I had used the potatoes! He didn’t sound very excited when I told him though…I guess maybe the reason was because when he had gone back to the hostal to get them, he had to ask where they were, and the attendant said he had put them in the trash can! He had pulled the little box of potatoes out of the trash can and carried them back to the bus station! Portagee…!

Me and Pete at top of Puno city with Lake Titicaca in background