Peru - Lake Titicaca

This morning we were met by our guide who was going to take us out onto the lake for the next couple of days. We boarded our boat and met 2 other travel companions and set off bound for the Uros floating islands. The floating islands are man-made islands which have been constructed from reeds and each island is a separate village. We stopped off at one of the islands in the Uros group and met the community who lived there, primarily the women as the men were off fishing. They welcomed us with a few songs and then proceeded to show us their homes which are also built from reeds. The couple of men who were there showed us how the island was built and the structure of the island (by cutting a small section of the island out and lifting it up so we could see). It was fascinating. 

After visiting this island we stopped off at one more and then set off again for our 3h journey to Amantani, the island where we were to spend the night with one of the local Aymaran/ Quechuan families. We arrived around lunch time and were met at the wharf by our families. Our family was a sweet husband and wife and their 13yo daughter, Nellie. Our mama took us to our home and made us a delicious lunch of Quinua (a South American grain similar to rice) and vegetable soup, followed by a delicious fried cheese with rice and potato. Later in the afternoon we all reunited for a soccer match between the local men and the tourists (there were quite a few different groups on the island - thankfully a lot of Europeans). We then walked up the mountain on the island to an area used by the locals to give offerings to Pacha Mama and Mama Qocha(Mother Earth and Mother Lake) for sunset. This walk took us to an altitude of 4160m and gave us an amazing view of the surrounding lake and sunset.  After sunset we made our way back to the village for a hot chocolate with Baileys and then home for dinner. We enjoyed a nice simple dinner with our family and had a great chat with Papa and Nellie in broken Spanish and English, our mama only spoke the local language of which we had just the basics on a phrase sheet. After dinner mama dressed us up in traditional clothes and Nellie took us to the dance that had been organised for us. This was quite fun as we were all there in traditional clothes and dancing traditional dances, it was very amusing.