Floating Islands - man-made islands?
Day 8
After enduring a 9-hour bus ride, we have finally arrived in Puno. Puno is a moderate-sized city located on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is enormous and is located in between the border of Peru and Bolivia. Lake Titicaca is also the highest (in altitude) navigable lake in the world.
I remember when I arrived at the hostel, I was cursing the fact that the rooms were located in second floor. While my head was pounding from altitude sickness, I had no energy or breath to drag my backpack up 20 stairs. To be honest, I don't think my entire experience in Puno was pleasant because of the altitude.
Nonetheless, we signed up a tour and navigated around the lake. Below, we stopped by Tequille Island.
At this island, we were treated with the local's warmest welcome. At first, I thought we were intruding their houses, however they seemed to be happy to see us. I guess we were afterall generating tourism revenue for them. As a token of appreciation, they decided to dance for us.
You will notice that the guys are wearing some interesting hat, appeared to be knitted. Apparently, all the hats were supposed to knitted by the guys themselves. The ladies choose their partners based on how nice the guys can knit their hats. Pretty neat eh?
This is the knitting tool.
Afterwards, we arrived in one of the floating islands. The floating islands were extremely tiny. In fact, the size of an island was probably just two condo units combined together. Since the islands were all man-made, the residents of the island gave us a small demonstration on how they make the lands. To my surprise, the entire foundation of the island was made up of just floating plants. Pretty cool!
Then, we went on this boat that was also hand-made by some sort of dry plants. Caroline and I were brave enough to hop on the boat and tour around the lake.
At night, we visited this gigantic condor at the top of the city. Remember the condor is one of the sacred animals in Peru? This statue definitely carrys some sort of religious or cultural meaning to the people of Peru.
