Uros floating islands, Amantaní and Taquile Island

Today we have another two-day tour. From Puno we go to the Uros floating islands on Lake Titicaca and then to Amantaní Island, where we will spend one night with a host family and stop at Taquile Island on the way back to Puno the next day.

Lake Titicaca is the highest lake on Earth, located at an altitude of 3,812 meters above sea level.

Our first stop was the Uros floating islands. These are islands made of reeds that float on the lake. Our guide, Ruben, is from the floating islands himself and showed us his small island where he lives and built himself.

After a short demonstration of how the islands are built, we continued by boat to Amantaní Island.

At the port, the residents welcomed us in their traditional clothes. We were divided into groups and assigned to different families. My group consisted of José and Angela, who are from Spain but have been living in Berlin for 5 years, and Carolina and Yared, both from Chile. Dolly led us to her house, where lunch was already waiting for us.

After lunch, we prepared for the hike to Pachatata or Pachamama. I chose Pachatata as it was about one hundred meters lower. The altitude of 4,200 meters was a bit challenging for me, but the view was worth it. The weather was also not so great. It was raining heavily and the wind was really cold. Luckily, I had a rain poncho with me. 👌

After the hike, the program continued. First, a typical dinner, during which I also gave away my gifts to the host family (German sweets: Haribo). Dolly (15), Boris (8), and Estrella (3) were very happy about it and tried them right away.

If you thought the evening would end after dinner, you were wrong. We were invited to a typical Peruvian party. For this, we also received traditional clothing from our host family.

At around 10 p.m., we finally returned to the host family's house and could finally sleep.

On the next day, we naturally started very early again, as we didn't want to waste any time. After breakfast and saying goodbye to the host family, we returned to the boat. With this, we continued to Taquile Island. Of course, it started raining again as soon as we got off the boat.

It meant hiking uphill again at 3,800 meters. We were all very happy when we reached the plaza mayor and luckily the sun came out and continued to shine all day.

After a shared lunch and a three-hour boat ride back to Puno, this adventure was also over.

It meant waiting for more than 7 hours for the night bus to Cusco. Fortunately, I was able to spend this time in my hostel.

The next few days will be particularly exciting again. I am going on a 4-day tour with the goal of reaching Machu Picchu. 😍