Puno, Peru
14° 8' S 75° 41' W
Jan 17, 2006 01:50
Distance 364km

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Puno and the Islands of Lake Titicaca

Text written in: English

after a  five hour busride, we arrived in puno. this is the best base camp for exploring the lake titicaca. we booked a two day tour to the islands including a homestay with a local family. after visiting the floating islands "los uros" (very touristic, seems to be unreal and a bit made up somehow), our boat took us to taquile, a beautiful island which remembered me to greek or italean islands.

after that, we reached our final destination "amantani". our host family lives in a nice little house and we got a warm cosy room for the four of us. we met up in the kitchen to have dinner and saw the family cooking like in the middle ages, just a fireplace, nothing else. our meal consisted of rice and onions and tomatos, everything from the fields of the family and it was really good. after dinner we got some traditional clothes and went to a little fiesta they organized for us. walking through the rain we had a hard time seeing the small path leading to the main plaza, two girls from our host family showed us the way, they seemed to know every single stone because they did not have lamps.

we danced, or did something similar, everyone was running in circles holding hands, very nice and simple. while we were dancing we all felt the altidude, the island is higher than 4.000 meters above sea level.

after a good night sleep we got up in the morning to enjoy a simple breakfast: tea with one pancake each. i found a little shop and bought some bread for our walk up to the temple of mother earth. it was good luck that we arrived on amantani exactly for the celebration/thanksgiving to mother earth. not a touristic thing at all, it was even more exiting to take part with all the locals. the island is divided in nine communities and they all come to the temples to meet there and exchange cocaleafes. a priest is making a fire, sacrificing the coca leafes and all hope that the fire is higher than two meters, that means that the harvest of the following year will be good. it was not very high at the beginning but the priest had a bottle of gasoline and just put more in so everyone was happy in the end.

the locals prepared traditional food on the fields around the temple. we were sitting in the grass and ate potatoes, beans and some kind of salad with onions and cheese. a beautiful meal in the sun.

tomorrow we are on our way to copacabana on the bolivian side of the lake.

 

 

 

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Photos / videos of "Puno and the Islands of Lake Titicaca":

crossing the andean mountains on the way to puno crossing the andean mountains on the way to puno crossing the andean mountains on the way to puno crossing the andean mountains on the way to puno women trying to sell "choclo con queso" on our way to puno meerschweinchen! it's called "cuy" and does not taste very good, we all tried it but robert was by far the bravest! robert enjoying the cuy, we call him "king cuy" from now on uros islands, very touristic modern communication on the floating "uros islands" don't know the name but i ate it uros islands so much sweets from the tourists, fat boy. floating "uros islands" lake titicaca girl, taquile island view from taquile island kids, taquile island view of lake titicaca from amantani island the kitchen of our host family, amantani island our host father with robert cooking with fire new hats for everyone, one of the daughters of the host family made them happy, waiting for food in traditional clothes, amantani island our host sister with "roy anderson" wearing traditional clothes on amantani island roy smiling dancing with local kids, amantani island little drummer boy georg aus wien! our toilet, it did not smell walking up to the temple of mother earth, amantani island temple of mother earth, about 1000 years old and still in use! locals arriving at the temple of mother earth group picture on amantani island man selecting cocaleafes for mama pacha cocaleafes, three for a wish in the middle of mama pacha old man, amantani island the priest lighning the fire for a good harvest, higher than 2 meters: good year, lower: bad year we had fun taking pictures one of the nine local communities arriving at the temple the priest with holy smoke woman behind me on top of the island, preparing the traditional food it was very good food blue potatoes having traditional festival dinner on the fields of amantani island girl, amantani island old couple talking
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