Puno and Lake Titicaca

About 12 hours south of Cusco is Puno at 3,800 m (more than 12,000ft) on the high alpine lake Titicaca. Puno was not exactly what I had expected after living in Arequipa and then traveling to Cusco. It just looks like a regular Peruvian city in the mountains. But it's still a pretty big tourist destination because there is an indigenous group of fisherman people that build small islands in the lake out of the reeds that grow there and they live there on these islands.

Uros is the group of floating islands.
The first day I went with Brandon, his mom and brother to Uros because  my friend Mike got sick from something he ate. As we were approaching the islands they looked like toy houses because everything is made out of reeds.

The tour took us to a common island. There were 4 families living on the island. They explained to us that some of the islands are like this one and survive off of tourism and the others don't accept tourists and survive off of fishing. The islands are made of the spongy, buoyant roots of the reeds tied together, then they pile the reeds on top to create the surface. To keep the island floating they have to keep piling the reeds on top of the island every few days.

The next day we said goodbye to Brandon and his family because they wanted to continue on to the west coast and we were just going back to AQP.

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. In the morning we visited a British navy boat given to Peru that is now being used as a Museum. I thought Dad and Stanton would like the tools and engine inside the boat.

Then we went back to Uros so Mike could see the islands. But this time was pretty good because the sun was setting and we got to come back in the dark.