Arrived at 5:30 in a bus station full of people sleeping and selling stuff! I left Adeline with the bags and went around to see how we could go to the lake and sleep there. Went to speak with all the travel agencies and right now I'm the queen of bargaining!!! We got a cheap tour where we could also leave our backpacks and at 7.30 we were on our way!
We went to visit the islas flotantes de Uros. As the name says, they are really floating islands made with a kind is cana which grows in the water. They tie it all up together and make a kind of anchor so they don't turn up on Bolivia!
We are in the most highest biggest lake in the world!! I think my body likes to be high above sea level as I haven't felt bad in any way! So now we are at 3808 mt above sea level!
From here a 3h boat ride through all the floating islands until we reached Amantani where we were divided into our Quechua families!
An amazing experience... For 2 days we were part of their family! In the house we stayed lived "our mother" with her 2 children and husband, their parents, two sisters with their husbands and children.
We had lunch with them - quinoa and vegetable soup, potatoes and cheese all from the island (they are vegetarian by the way!).
After this we went up the Pachatata mountain to the temple at the top where we could make a whish per each 3 stones and be taken away by the views where you could see the snowy mountains on Bolivia, the isla del sol and on the other side Peru.
The island where we are has 4000 inhabitants and they speack Quechua language, very different from spanish. Learned to say Hola which seems something like allyancho!
We stayed up here for some time and then went down to meet our family which was waiting for us to have dinner.
We had vegetable soup and rice with pasta which made me feel very sleepy as we hadn't slept much on the bus... We had a wonderful talk with the husband who told us about the traditions and how they lived.
After dinner we got dressed up with the typical clothes which include z
2 skirts, a blouse with flowers, a black thing to put on our head and a kind of belt that worked as a courset, which with all the clothes we had because it was so cold made me almost not breath anymore !!
We went down to the party hall in a very dark village as they dont have much electricity. The whole group was there dressed up and we all danced in a circle running around while the band was playing peruvian music! Some dances and I was knocked out and ready to sleep!