Lake Titicaca

Our last stop on our whirlwind Peru tour was to explore Lake Titicaca, which is famous for being the world’s highest navigable lake at over 12.5k feet. Thankfully, by this point we barely even noticed the elevation! Most travelers will use the town of Puno as their base for visiting the lake, which is a scrappy little town just on the banks of the great body of water. Puno has a charming enough plaza and we certainly enjoyed strolling along Calle Lima, which is the pedestrian street, but we were mostly here to take in Titicaca!

Just two miles away from Puno is the floating islands of Uros, which are inhabited by the Uru people who have a distinct language and culture from the rest of the country. Impressively, all of these islands are constructed from reeds that need to be laid in layers and replaced as the lake eventually overtakes them again - which could be anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of

months. These reeds are really the basis for all kinds of functions here, as the traditional boats are also mostly made from this material. You can even pay a small fee to explore the other parts of Uros by this reed boat - which you know we did!.

From here it was about an hour by boat to reach the next island Taquile, which has an almost Mediterranean feel. The waters are startlingly blue and you can even see great mountains on the Bolivian side of the lake which is about 100 miles away. Upon arriving you are welcomed by locals doing a traditional dance, and can buy some handicrafts made by them. From there we walked along the gently hilly landscape, learning about daily life on the island and taking in the incredible views. It all ended with fantastic quinoa fry bread and freshly caught trout at a small local restaurant overlooking the lake. We also seized the opportunity for one of our last chances to have another local delight - a bottle of Cusquena beer! It is always bittersweet to reach the end of a big trip, but taking in the majestic lake was a great note to go out on.