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Puno and the Titicaca lake

After the Macchu Picchu mountain overflow we needed a little bit of water so we headed in direction of the lake Titicaca.. Cuzco-Puno (on the lake Titicaca) was a 10 hours bus ride... It was raining cats and dogs when we arrived in Puno at about 6 o clock in the morning. They permitted us to sleep in the cold bus till the rain was more or less over and we could go in the the small town looking for a hostel... I was not feeling like boat-tours after all this rain and the awful weather... But in the heights the weather as usual is very special... at 10 o clock we could already enjoy the sun and the town and the boats got dry in a very short time. So let's go: We decided to book a 2 days tour to the artificial floating islands and the natural islands of Amantani and Taquille... By the way, WE are now: Belen, me, and Eric, a mexican guy we met in Cuzco and which decided to come with us in direction of Puno and Bolivia.... 

The floating islands were built a long time ago (don't remember when :-) by indigenous who flew from the Inca invasion... They lost their land and so decided to built artificial islands into the lake and live on it... The islands are still integer and habitated although my impression is that this is only a tourist trap... You find on the small island a restaurant, houses, a hotel... and indigenous living there... Obviously no tourist want's to stay there because it's quite isolated and super humid... Nice to see.. but nothing more... The lake Titicaca has more to offer!! This highest navigable lake has two beautiful islands on the peruan side: Amantani and Taquille... Again we climbed the highest view points of the islands to enjoy a wonderful view on the mountains on the bolivian and peruan side. We slept with locals in Amantani as there is no hotel on the Island and the next day we went to Taquille and back to Puno.... The local arrangement was very poor: no light (candle), no water, bad and only small amount of food... even though it was interesting to speak with the locals and live one day like the live the whole life if they don't want to leave the island... At night they organized a party with local music for us... They dressed us up like it has to be and took us to the social center of the city (again up the mountain...) There they have the only electricity generator of the island so that we could enjoy at least a couple of hour of light... So we drunk, danced and chatted with the locals... But only till 22... At this height you don't want to dance too long and for the locals getting up at 5 o clock is more or less standard... moreover the generator was switched off at a certain time... Energy is important on Amantani and they save it as good as they can... Climbing down from the social centre to our house was not that easy without light.... Again the flash-light of my cell-phone was of great help...  I was happy I took it with me at this time...

Finally I met also two italians (from Sicilia)... till this point of the travel I met all nationalities but italians. Strange if thinking that Italy is one of the biggest emigration countries!! Appearently italian don't mind to travel for work but don't like too much to travel for fun... at least not in the backpack-style of travel... It was fun how we met  I was climbing again on one of the one million fucking slippery rocks of the island and almost I lost grip and felt into the water... So Pietro (the name of the first italian) told to his friend Nino in italian: "Minchia... si stava spezzando il collo questo qui..." And I replied in italian: "no ti preoccupare che ne ho passate di peggio"  He was as surprised as me to find another italian on this small and remote island on the lake of Titicaca at 4500m height... Well: you never know who understands you guys...  Anyway: It was really fun we these two guys and I also enjoyed to speak italian again after that many weeks of spanish or english... 

Bueno enough stories... enjoy the pictures... Taquilla and especially Amantani have some rrrrreally great views... :-)

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