Lake Titicaca, Peru

We had two stops on Lake Titicaca. The first was the city of Puno, which was a surprisingly big city with plenty of historical streets and good restaurants. It is said to be the gateway to Lake Titicaca. In the afternoon, we took a boat trip to the floating islands. These are man-made islands in the middle of the lake. The indigenous people make the islands by weaving reeds. The owners demonstrated how the islands were made and showed us where they lived. Although it was freezing on the island, it is unsafe for the families to have fires for cooking or keeping warm. They also have to change the flooring by adding dry reeds, two to three times a month!

The next day we crossed to the Bolivian side of the lake, to a town called Copacabana. Here, we took another boat trip out to the sun island, which was named by the Inca people. We did a short hike on the island and visited some of the Inca sites before returning to turn. That evening, we crossed the lake by ferry to reach La Paz in Bolivia.Read more