Lake Titicaca, Taquile (Dec 4th)

A stomach bug had hit James in the night, so I had breakfast with the family on my own: pancakes and jam. As during the other two meals we had had with them, the family sat to the side while I sat at the table, but since James wasn't there, I asked if the girls could sit with me, which they did happily.





After breakfast, I woke up James, and we packed and said our goodbyes to the family. We also left two small gifts of thanks, as is customary, since each of the families on the island takes turns hosting tourists once or twice a month, and the gifts they receive in exchange make up a portion of their regular income. Then we joined the rest of our group, got back onto our tour boat, and departed, with one last look at Amanati.











After an hour's boat ride, we arrived on Taquile, another of the larger, but very traditional islands in Lake Titicaca.





There, we walked around the island, took pictures at yet another Plaza de Armas, this one featuring a gorgeous view of the lake...





... and, after an unnecessarily long and tedious lecture on the traditions of the island by our somewhat melodramatic guide, had a small set lunch in one of the numerous family run restaurants on the island.





Our time on Taquile only totaled two hours, and soon we were back on the boat for our 3-hour journey back to Puno. James and I spent most of the trip in the roof of the boat with Jenny, another Northern England, but my fair skin could only take so much sun, and I spent the last hour asleep across several seats on the main deck.

When we arrived back at our hotel, our rather changeable host smiled broadly, then scolded us about the flooding of the bathroom floor the previous morning, which we explained had come from a leak in the tub. He didn't believe us. We then booked a catamaran tour through him for two days later, after which he asked if we needed to stay in the room another night, to which we replied yes, seeing as how the tour was unavailable the next day. He then said, "Okay. We are full tomorrow." Now, we had not seen another soul in this hotel the entire time we had been there, but were being told that there were no vacancies. Personally, I think we were being kicked out because he didn't believe us about the tub.

We still chose to book the tour and then went out for a drink at the one of the bars we had visited the night before and dinner at a local restaurant where I made the mistake of trying pizza outside of NYC but also discovered the pleasures of mulled wine (or here, vino caliente). We then had an unexceptional tea and desert at the reputedly best-in-Puno restaurant and tucked in for an early night.

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