Lake Titicaca

Next we drove to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Not much of a drop in altitude as the lake is the highest in the world at 3820m. The scale of the lake is quite amazing at 9000 sq km. Shared by Peru and Bolivia, our trip to the various islands confined us to the Peruvian side.

An earthquake hit Peru in the early hours of the 20th. At 6 on the richter scale it was large but no fatalities were reported(ed-we found out after we wrote this that 17 people had died and there were hundreds of casualties.) The main areas affected were all places we had visited in the past couple of weeks – Pisco, Nasca and Arequipa. The reprocussions for us were that the lake was VERY choppy and our boat was not all that stable or powerful (the 100 guinea pigs spinning wheels in the engine room were just not working!) Our first stop was the floating islands, which are made from the huge amounts of reed that grow in the lake. The base is constantly topped up with additional reed and each island has a lifespan of around 10-15 years before the inhabitants have to leave and start again. You can even eat the reed, which is pretty tasteless and feels like stringy celery.