El Lago Titicaca

To end my completely cliche-touristy visit to Peru, I spent the last 3 days in Lake Titicaca. But you know what? Those touristy spots are the hot traveling sites for a reason. The Lake is really awesome. We stayed in Puno, which wasn´t so awesome, it´s kind of a dingy town. But we quickly left and spent 2 days touring the nearby islands. First we went to the famous Islas Flotantes. These are artificially made islands, entirely constructed of mud and the reeds that grow naturally in the area. Originally, these islands were made by the Uros people of Peru who were escaping persecution, but tradition held until now. The concept itself is cool enough, but it was so fun to actually walk around on these things. One can really tell that you are on a floating pile of grass, a very weird sensation for sure.
After these islands we boated out to Isla Amantanì, a pretty desolate mountain in the middle of the lake. Amantaní was were we spent the night. Our tour was us 3 americans, 1 australian, and about 20 argentines and each group of 3 or 4 spent the night with a family in the town. That was a pretty amazing experience, because the families really welcomed us in and showed us how they live on the island. Their lives were simple and VERY traditional, with the woman doing the cooking and cleaning and all. Yet, during the meals, we would have really interesting conversations about peruvian and world politics, so clearly they were well-informed and more or less worldly. The other aspect that struck me about his village was that in Peru at least, the indigenous villagers are not putting on a show for the tourists (which I´ve seen on my other travels). It´s not as if they have these traditional towns where everyone wears traditional clothing and cooks over a fire, but then when the tourists leave the villagers return to their apartments in the nearby city wearing suits. In these towns, the villagers really have continued the traditions of their ancestors. It was a lot of fun to learn about them while sharing the experience. That night we had a dance party and our families made us dress up in the traditional clothes too! They were warm but not so comfortable unfortunately. Even with all these interesting activities that day, my highlight was watching the stars that night. We could clearly see the milky way it was so dark.
The next morning we left for a nearby island, Isla Taquile. This was a supposedly more-touristy island, but the only difference was a few restaurants and a weaving market. We didn´t do anything but eat lunch here, but that meant a nice long hike up and down the mountain, complete with the most gorgeous views. The Lake is famous for it´s bright blue waters, but you can really only see this color from above, so it was nice to get the chance on this island. After that trip, we just took the boat home!
So that pretty much ends my trip to South America. Today in a couple of hours I leave for the nearby airport with almost 24 hours of traveling ahead of me. It might be hell, but I´ve done worse, that´s for sure!
Stay tuned for the uploading of lots of photos in the next couple of days.