Navigating Lake Titicaca

By Darius and Micayla

Mom and Dad woke us up at 6 to have a fast breakfast. At 6:30 we left for the airport. We felt sad to be leaving Cusco because it was nice to be in one place for a while and to be in hotel with really great service.

After a short plane ride, we arrived in Juliaca. When we got there, we could not find our driver because he was working in the office and the sign said "Michael Kevin" instead of "Michael Russell". We eventually found the driver and got in a car and drove for 45 minutes. We arrived at a lake, but found out it was the wrong spot. So, we got in the car and drove a little further down a dirt road, and then walked down a windy, rocky path to get to our row boats. When we were going down the path we saw a type of animal that was like a chinchila but is was smaller. Our guide told us its name, but said it in Quechua, the language they speak here, and we can't remember what he said.

We got in row boats and rowed across the lake to an island that had vicunas on it. The local people set up the island as a vicuna sanctuary and started with just a few and now there are more than 150 living on the island. We saw at least 10 vicunas eating and walking near the shore. We then kept rowing to a small town called Sullistani and walked around the ruins there. The ruins were pre-Inca and were places where they buried their rulers along with their pets and pots. The burial sites looked like round stone huts and were called funeral towers. There were a few towers that the Inca's also started to make, but they had been hit by lightening and parts of their tops are knocked off. The Inca's towers looked more like small castles made from giant rocks.



After the ruins we drove to a small town and had lunch in a house. The house was made of adobe and had straw or reeds on its roof. They made us a small pancake with jelly on it, soup, trout, and a peach dessert. The family had guinea pigs that they did not eat because they only eat guinea pigs in Cusco. They also had alpaca and sheep. It was cool to have lunch in someone's home. After lunch we drove to Puno which is a big town on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is the highest lake in the world that big boats can drive on. It is more than 12,500 feet above sea level and is more than 100 miles long, 50 miles wide, and almost 1000 feet deep.

The next day, we got on a big motor boat and went to the floating islands of Uros. The islands were made of reeds and floated on the water. It felt squishy walking on the reeds and you could feel the island move when a wave came in.


On the islands there were small huts made of reeds and in the middle of the island there was a small trout farm. We also got to ride on a boat that was made of reeds. The first islands were made by a tribe of people called the Uros who escaped into the reeds to hide from the Incas and then from the Spanish.




After visiting the floating islands, we took the motor boat to the island of Taquille. It took about three hours to get there. We hoped that our trip would not end up being like Gilligan's (our mom bought us the Gilligan Island DVDs to watch when we are in airports and waiting around.) While on the boat, Darius took a nap and we all played card games. The island was about 3 miles long, a half mile wide, and was in the middle of Lake Titicaca. There are about 2000 people that live on it and only people who are born on the island can live there. All the land is passed down to sons and daughters and they don't sell the land to anyone.

When we got there we climbed up a hill to a house and had lunch with the family. We had soup and trout again. It was yummy. They say Lake Titicaca used to have lots of trout in it, but now the trout people eat comes from trout farms on the lake and the floating islands.

After lunch we went with the mother to the field and helped her break up the soil and take the dead grass out and put it in a pile so they could burn it. They were getting ready to plant potatoes in the field.





After working, my dad went swimming in Lake Titicaca, which was really cold. We then played jump rope with Judith, the family's 9 year old daughter. Marco, the family's 5 year old boy kept trying to get in the way. After, we played a dice game called Cacho, which is a Bolivian game. We then went up to see the sun set, but could not see it because it was too cloudy. We came back and ate dinner which was potato soup and egg on top of rice. Then we went to bed and slept under heavy wool blankets.



The next morning we had pancakes with jelly that you roll up like a crepe. After saying goodbye to the family, we walked to the far side of the island to the only town which took an hour. The kids we stayed with have to walk an hour to and from school every day all by themselves using the same path we took. The town was nice, with lots of sheep. It was near the highest point on the island which is more than 13.000 feet high. We were able to see the Island of the Sun which is on the far side of the lake in Bolivia. We had lunch which was soup and trout. After lunch we hiked down 530 steps to the boat and rode back to Puno. On the way down, Micayla got a bloody nose because of the altitude. When we were on the boat coming back to Puno we all sat outside and fell asleep in the sun. My mom got sunburned. We then played cards before arriving in Puno.

Today we went exploring in the town of Puno. We rode in a motorized rickshaw, which was really a motorcycle attached to a two wheeled cart. We walked through a bunch of stalls that sold different things that tourists buy and then around a large pond. We took a bicycle rickshaw back to the main square. We walked around and went into a church and watched a mass. Now we are getting ready to leave for Lima and then to Ecuador where we are then flying to the Galapagos Islands. We are sad to leave Peru because it is a nice and fun country to be in.