Yang Ke was not feeling very well (maybe due to the high altitude of 3’800m), so we had two rest days during which we only explored the cafes and restaurants and had some short walks in the city. There is not much sightseeing, but it is not an unpleasant town and good to experience some local life. Every day had some activity, from musical parades over political speeches to protest marches. Peru is strongly expanding their mining activities, causing a lot of protests from locals worried about the environmental impact. Strikes seem to be pretty common measure of protest in Peru and particularly in this border region with Bolivia. They are often limited to 1 or 2 days, but then pretty thorough. There was one during our stay and travelers had to delay their travel plans as the border got shut tight.
During our walks we passed by a cinema and spontaneously decided to watch the new Avenger movie, as the ticket price was a bargain of only 6.5 Soles ($2). Turned out to be a big challenge for our rudimentary Spanish, but we will use it as benchmark and watch it again after our Spanish course

Yang Ke was exploring the local job market, but offers for actuaries specialized in marine insurance were limited…

Our first trip to the Lake Titicaca brought us to the floating islands of Uros, an only 30min boat ride from the harbor

The Uru people settled down on the lake a very long time ago and since then live on their 80 or so floating islands, most of them rather small, typically occupied by one extended family. The islands are constructed fully of dried reeds, which is available in abundance on the lake. Of course the reed will rot over time and the island continuously has to be “restocked” with new layers of reed.

It is impressive how a community can survive on the water for centuries just relying on reed and fishing. Over time the Uros have intermingled more and more with the local tribes from onshore, loosing their own language and some of their customs, but still continue to live their traditional life with some small modernizations thanks to improved income from tourism.

The Titicaca Lake is immense and once you are away from the coast it feels more like an ocean, if it weren’t for the mountain panorama in the background.
A few of them have snowcaps, which in combination with the endless water makes for a quite unusual sight. That’s when you remember that Titicaca Lake is the highest navigable lake in the world…

There are a few islands on the lake which have been populated by other groups, less masochistic than the Uros. A homestay on one of the two larger islands is a nice getaway to experience the traditional lifestyle of the islanders while admiring the beautiful scenery. We opted for the island Amantani, where the elderly have adopted a fair system, rotating all guest families, so that everybody benefits from the tourists. While initially every family only hosted at most two guests and guests had more chance to experience the typical daily activities of the family, now many seem to have expanded their facilities to accommodate more guests. We ended up together with a Romanian family which didn’t speak Spanish and whose strong Romanian language seemed to intimidate the kind host.

We therefore enjoyed exploring the island and the beautiful views which reminded me of a Mediterranean island. Once the sun starts to set the island also turns pretty much black and we finished our day by sitting outside and waiting for the stars to emerge while the sun descends. The isolated location and high altitude make for a beautiful sky and view of the Milky Way.