Peru Entry #5

Yesterday we had another amazing day. We jumped on a plane to head for the city of Puno. It’s a great starting point to explore Lake Titicaca. We heard about these floating islands that people live on. They call them floating islands because they are handmade. They are referred to as the Uros Islands.The Uros people have been living like this for centuries. These islands are made from totora reeds. They use these reeds to make the islands and their homes. They are also used to make crafts that they sell to tourist. The islands are constructed with many layers of these reeds. They constantly replenish them from the top. It is really an amazing thing to see how they live.

Heading out to the islands. It’s about a 30 minute boat ride from the dock of Puno. Where by the way we had an amazing lunch. Right along the dock there are these small food tents. We had grilled chicken and rice. A great salad and a bowl of fresh fruit and fresh fruit juice. the total bill for both of us was $7.

We have arrived at the islands.

There are about 40 or 50 of these islands. When we pulled in we saw a soccer game going on. ALso a volley ball game.I guess each small island has its own team.
Check out this soccer field.

Here are the ladies playing volleyball

The huts you see are their homes.

These boats are their means of transportation.

This is it. They live jut like this. On these very small islands in these huts. Amazing!

Stephanie just hoping onto the island. It is so weird to walk on. it’s real squishy.

This lady is just grinding up some cornmeal.

These kids that live on these islands are so cute.

We are making some new friends

We met this woman on the island. She has 9 kids. Crazy. But they were so nice. The kids offered us a ride on one of their rafts that were made out of reeds.

This was a large size raft. It has 2 people controlling the raft. These young girls were working hard. There were probably at least 12+ people on the raft.
Our drivers

She looked like she needed a break. So I took over for a little while.

Pulling up to another island. We jumped around on 3 different islands.

What a life all these kids have.

The largest island actually has what they call a hotel. They will rent you these little huts for the night. $6 a night. There is a mattress in the hut and that’s all you get. They have a store on the island and a restaurant. Where the speciality is fresh trout that they catch in the lake.

They even have a phone booth.

Here are the hotel rooms.

They do have schools

The entrance to the main island

One more island to check out.

This is grandma

She has lived on these islands her whole life. She is close to 100 year old. They say the people on these islands live to close to 100. They say it has a lot to do with the fact that everything they eat is 100% fresh. It’s something to think about with our own diets.

Back to the puerto. (Dock)

We needed a quick snack. These ladies had great popcorn.

Our ride back to our hotel.

A couple quick shots on the way back to our hotel.