We arrived in Puno on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca at 5am in the morning, where we were picked up and taken to a little hotel so we could sleep and get some breakfast before we got onto the boat. There were three other people from the volunteer project who were also on the same trip, and we got onto the boat around 9am. Our first stop was one of the many floating islands, called Uros. The floating islands are literally made up of layers of reeds, which then have houses built on top of them. It took about 2 hours to get to Uros, as Lake Titicaca is so huge. Whilst we were there our guide explained the process of building an island and how these islands date back to pre-Incan times.
Once we had looked around we then were back on the boat for another 2 hour trip to Amantini Island where we would also stay the night. That afternoon we had lunch with our family that we were staying with. The mother was only 20 and she already had 2 little girls called Elinda and Stephanie who were 4 and 3. We then went to go and watch a local football match between 2 of the 10 "tribes" which live on the Island. Afterwards we all hiked up the two big hills called Pachatata and Pachamama and got to see an amazing sunset over the Lake. In the evening we had supper with our family which was quinoa soup and then a rice dish. (Everything here comes with rice!) Once we had had dinner our "house mum" dressed us all up in traditional dress and we all wandered up to the village hall where we met up with all the other people on our trip.
Puno (the town the boat left from)
Liz, Kelly and Oren
Uros Island
Alejandro our tour guide on Uros Island
Uros
Amantini Island (where we stayed the night)
The mother's two little girls; Elinda and Stephanie
The house we were living in
Local football match
Pachatata
Liz and Oren
Liz, Elinda, Me, Oren, Dina (the mother) and Kelly
Elinda and I