I arrived in Puno (12,000ft+) two nights ago and went straight to bed (After dinner and after chatting with Daniel of course!). Daniel's grandfather told me that I should rest as soon as I arrive to this altitude and I think his advise was helpful 'cuz I feel great --Unless I have to walk up a flight of stairs.



Yesterday I went on a tour boat to stay the night at the island of Amanani on Lake Titicaca. The island is inhabited by a small, farming indigenous community. It is a very harsh environment. It only rains 4 months out of the year and the families are very poor. They are completely dependent on farming and more recently tourism. There are two ways to go to the Island. You can either go with a pre-arranged tour group for the day or you can go with a guy that is from the island. If you go with someone from the indigenous community all the proceeds go to the community instead of the tour guide. I naturally decided to go with the locals and had an amazing time. The local families take in tourists on a rotating basis. When we arrived, they split us up and sent us to stay with a family. Below is a photo of the family I stayed with.

Behind the family, you can see a little door. That's where the "kitchen" was. All the woman ate on the floor with the children near the stove and then men sat in stools or at the table. In this picture you can see that everyone is dressed informally in attire for working around the house. When the families go to the plaza in town or travels, they wear the very colorful and beautiful dresses with black shaws. Everything is embroidered and very beautiful. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture for you...I always feel so rude when I take a picture of the locals because well you know...The head male of the household was very gracious to answer all of my farming and plant questions. The indigenous community speaks Quechua as their native language, but the daughter in law, children and the father of the household all spoke Spanish. Some of the other tourists I went out to the island with did not have such luck. I stayed one night on the island and then we got back in the boat and headed over to the island of Tequile.

When docked at the island, you are left at the bottom of a 500 step staircase. Here is a few pictures of the staircase and the view from the top of the staircase.

Can you believe I walked up all of those steps at this elevation? And what a view of Lake Titicaca! And given my slow pace, I had plenty of time to admire the view. You can see the dock at the bottom of the hill. Shortly after we arrived back at the boat, the Minister of Tourism arrived with his entourage...very impressive.

I have other pictures I would like to download but the image downloading just isn't working for me right now. I have a couple of really nice pictures of the floating islands we stopped at on the way out to Amantani island so check back.

After the long boat ride home, I arrived in Puno at around 2:30pm today. You will all be pleased to know, I have finally changed into my second outfit after a long hot shower (Which you probably won't see in pictures because it's so cold here I am always in layers of jackets). I had trout fried in flour batter (Remember when dad would make that for us mom? Nick?) and a pancake with caramel for dessert. I guess we aren't fooling any Peruvian into thinking pancakes are a breakfast food. Ha!

Tomorrow I'll be getting on a 7am bus to La Paz. I hope everyone is enjoying the warmth of summer!