We then took a boat and went to one island in lake Titicaca (highest navigable lake in the world - 3900m) called Taquile. We hiked to the town center, I found really hard to breath normally!
The community on the island has a specific dress code that allowed us to recognize who is single and who is married! Single man wear a red and white hat, whereas married man wear a red only hat!
People there get married quite young, but before that they leave together for about 1-2 years and if everything works out well, they get married!
We had lunch at the top of the island, on the main plaza.
After that, we hiked down to another port where our boat was waiting for us.
After about 2 hours, we reached Luquina, where our host mothers were waiting for us! We were 2 in each family.
My family was, oeuf corse, at the very top of the hill and the altitude really doesn't help the hiking!
We met the rest of the family (3 really cute kids aged 6, 8 and 15), wearing traditional costumes!
They then walked us down to the primary school of the community where boys played football against the locals! We met all the kids of the community, who were all so cute in their little costume!
After the game, we went back to our house and had diner. Families do not speak a word of English! My grammar in Spanish is still quite bad but at least I was able to practice!
After diner, the mother dressed us up in the traditional costume!
4 skirts of different colors
A black jacket
A black sombrero
A white piece of fabric (miss universe style!)
No wonder the woman in the village look quite large!!! We looked HUGE! :-).
We walked back to the school where we met the rest of the group in their costume! Quite funny! Our families danced for us and taught us the traditional moves! We had to dance, and it was a lot of fun! The little kids danced too! Cute!
On the next morning, we took another bus and After a few hours, we reached the famous and unique floating islands of Uros! It is great!
They build the islands using totora reeds, and they build their house and boat using the same plant! They have to use anchors otherwise the islands would drift away! Some if the houses have a tv! They use solar panels!
We then went back to Puno and walked to the contraband market - really disappointing! Nothing too fancy and expensive prices!
We walked back to the town center and enjoyed a few drinks (Pisco sour for me!!) playing pool!
At 4, we all gathered and walked to the Condor Hill where 620 steps were waiting for us (yes we counted!) to reach an altitude of 4,017 above sea level!
The guys tried to beat the previous record and almost did (6minutes 42 seconds)! Our hearts were beating sooooo fast and it was really hard to catch out breath!
And for diner, nice food in a traditionnal restaurant, folkloric dances in traditional costumes and HAIL!!
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