Our transport from our Puno hotel to the boat at Lake Titicaca was bicycle powered rickshaw type taxis. We then loaded onto our 15 m passenger launch to explore Lake Titicaca. Our first stop was the Uros, floating reed islands. The indigenous people still build & maintain the islands as they were originally built albeit with a few slightly more modern tools these days. The islands have been set up for tourists & we were shown how the islands are built with models & we were able to go for a ride on a reed boat for about $2.50 pp. We then had a 2 hr boat ride to our next stop at Taquile Island. Here we walked up a steep hill to get magnificent views over the lake. The climb was a small practice run for the Inca Trail in a week or so. Although we were puffing a bit at the altitude of 4020m, we all coped very well. After some souvenir shopping we had lunch in a little restaurant on the hillside overlooking the lake. Lunch consisted of quinoa soup, locally caught trout & the local coca leaf tea, all beautifully presented & delicious. It is a pity that the introduced trout have almost replaced the native fish.
Our next destination was our home stay At Luquina which has been set up with local families who live nearby the lake. Our stay commenced at the local school with a game of soccer between visitors and hosts. There was much amusement & laughter & our hosts won by a narrow margin. The game finished with the sun setting over Lake Titicaca in the background. Our hosts then put on a party for us where we had to dress up in local costumes & participate in traditional Inca dancing. A local band played music however it was the local children who stole the show. It was the time for us to walk up the hill to our room. Our headlamps were hardly needed, as it was a full moon & a clear night. Our room had a double bed plus 2 single beds & it was clean despite being basic. Our Mama for the evening, Aurora, & her 15 year old son Edgar spoke very little English so it was a challenge to hold a conversation. There was no WiFi & the translator on the iPhone does not have Aymana. However our hosts were delightful & friendly & we managed with sign language very well. The Papa was working in Puno driving the bicycle taxis. We had a meal of quinoa soup & a local dish served with rice. The meal was prepared for hard working farmers so it was large & healthy. We ate our meal in the kitchen which was just a mud-brick shed with no door, a small table, a bench seat & an old chair which doubled as a bench. It had a basic wood and dung fired pottery oven in the corner but no chimney so the walls were covered in soot and the room was very smoky. It made our shack at Anson's Bay seem very luxurious, even compared to 40 years ago in it's original state. Edgar had almost perfect teeth which is probably credited to their practically no sugar diet & he & his Mama were very proud of this. Dental care is not affordable to these people & Edgar was the exception in having good teeth. After dinner, it was time for bed as, even though they have electricity, life seems to revolve around getting up when the sun rises, working hard & going to bed when it is dark. After a long sleep, we awoke to the sound of roosters crowing, cows mooing, donkeys braying & a magnificent view over Lake Titicaca. Breakfast consisted of a fresh hard boiled egg & fried pancakes with a cup of tea. Mama Aurora had already been up & peeled potatoes & Edgar had been up & moved the cows. After breakfast we moved and tethered two of the pigs and then Edgar took us for a walk to a rock built shrine on the top of the 4200m hill. On the steep climb up, he delighted in finding lizards, beetles & snails under the rocks. From the top we had magnificent 360 degree panoramic views and we could appreciate the vasr size of Lake Titicaca. On our descent we gathered twigs from a mint aroma bush to take back for making a herbal tea. It was then time to milk the cows & Tony showed that after 50 years he still had the technique for milking by hand even though not quite as fast. It was now 11:00am & time for lunch before we headed back down the hill to catch the motor boat back to Puno. Meeting up with the rest of our group, everyone agreed that our home stay with the Aymara families had been a memorable experience.
Our host family was quite obviously desperately poor as their mud walled cottage lacked any comforts or even access to running water and yet their friendliness and optimistic approach to life was inspirational! The whole experience made us reconsider the key issues in our lives that are truly important which sadly we tend to forget in our materialistic western society!