Lake Titikaka...The Peruvian Side

The bus ride from Copacabana to the border only took about 20 minutes.  After exiting Bolivia (the passport official didn´t give Emily anymore problems, though he did make kind of a disgusted face when he saw her American passport) we had to walk over the border to Peru.  When going through Peruvian passport control, I decided to enter on my US passport.  The border control guy kept looking through my passport three or four times (I thought there was a problem) before he looked up at me and asked if I had a second passport.  I said yes and handed him my Israeli passport, he was just looking for the exit stamp from Bolivia and completely understood why I had used two different passports.  We loaded on to a new bus and headed off another hour plus until we hit Puno.  Once we got in to Puno tending we didn´t have much time we quickly found a hostel and booked a relativly cheap priced tour for the next day to see the famous Uros Floating Islands.  We also got a great recommendation for some Chinese food in town, and had our first Chinese food since we have been in South America.  We have later learned that Peru has a very large minority population of Asians (mainly Japanese and Chinese immigrants), including one of their past presidents (who has since been convicted of human rights violations), Alberto Fujimori who is the son of Japanese immigrants.

Ghetto border crossing between Bolivia and Peru

The next morning we were picked up early and headed off to the port for our tour of the Floating Islands. The islands were pretty interesting/amazing/out of this world.  First I´ll begin why these islands even exist.  Around 700 years ago evidently a people called the Uros  were in a war with a neighboring people.  Well needless to say there enemies were a little stronger so in order to escape they built boats out of totora reed (which is everywhere in the Peruvian side of Lake Titikaka).  Well they began to live on these boats and from these boats they started to make islands which are completely made out of reeds.  By completely made out of reeds I mean they legit float and every couple of months or years (I don´t remember) they just need to puit a new layer of reeds on top (I think each island can last 15-20 years).  Well basically for 700 years now these people have been living on these islands.  Now a days there are 40 Islands which are all pretty small (no larger then 20 meters x 20 meters.  Only a handful of families live on each islands (according to wikipedia about 2,000 still live on the islands).  There entire lifes revolve around the totora reed, boats (even though we did see a lot of motor boats, I think the reed boats are mainly for tourists now), there houses, a large part of there diet is eating these reeds, and more. Our guide told us that about 60% of the islands (which for the most make a large oval) participate in tourism activities. He also said if there are ever disputes between families on one island that one or several families will literally just saw off their part of the island and float it (via boat) to either make it a new island or add on to an existing island. 

 One of the many floating islands

Everything is made out of reeds...no joke

They dressed Emily and I up in traditional clothing.  That i s the President of the island with us

Literally this stuff looked right out of a movie set, this is a picture of the fish pond in the middle of their island.  Also we learned the square built bouses only came along after colonialization.  Prior to this time their houses were normally circular.

The islands were pretty cool just to walk on.  They were really squishy but quiet comfortable. When we arrived on our first of two islands, the head of the island with the help of the tour guide explained to us a lot about their culture and also their connection with the reeds and how the islands are built and maintained.  In the middle of the island the have a fish pit where they raise fish: mainly trout.  We then walked around the small Island and they showed us several handmade goods (mainly woven stuff) which we did decide to buy one (because we need decorations for our new apartment in Ann Arbor!)  We then went over to the capital island (which really is not much bigger then any of the other ones).  Walked around for a bit and headed back to Puno.  Overall we spent just over 3 hours out and about.  In reality the islands we went to seemed really touristy in a way that the residents literally live off of the tourism.  It seemed kind of sad almost that they seemed only to keep their traditions in order to show off to the tourists.  It is pretty cool though how much  there lives revolve around the reeds.  The reeds grow naturally all around the islands and the islanders can just go and pick more when they need them.  But also at the same just seeing these things were amazing!  They are undescribable.

Several of the Floating Reed Islands in a row

About the average size of one island (the watchtowers on the island date back to the time the islands were built to make sure no one was coming to attack)

The reeds were so squishy to walk on (on a good note when they put several of the islands together to play soccer there a few injuries when people land hard on the pitch)

Several Islands in a Row

A view of t he bay where all the Islands lay, the buildings  you see in the background are more islands not the main land.

Back in town we decided to wait and catch a bus around 3pm.  So we shopped around a bit (Emily bought some alpaca wool socks) and had lunch...a Peruvian called Ceviche which is a soup of white fish, limes, and chili pepper that was delicious.  As there was not much to truly do in Puno itself we were more then content to get out of there after 24 hours.  We arrived at the bus station around 2:45 and there was a 2:30 bus that hadn´t left yet so we hoped on it and made our way to Arequipa.