Lake Titicaca

On Wednesday night, I graded exams as fast as I could, with a little help from a few others. At 10:00 I boarded an overnight bus for Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca with two other teachers, Val and Peter, and Jess, a friend of Val's. We arrived in Puno around 5:30 in the morning. It was freezing in Puno, but the sun was INTENSE. I applied sunscreen almost every hour, but my nose still got fried. (And it did warm up during the day, by the way, but once that sun went down, it went back to freeeeezing.)
We caught a boat to the floating islands of Uros. It was a gorgeous morning. The blue color of the lake is unreal. And when we got to Uros, it was just plain surreal. I don't know how, but the islands were actually built by hand centuries ago, so people could escape the brutality of the Inca empire. They literally float. We got a demonstration of how that works, but I still don't quite get it. The ground squished when you walked on it. We talked to a local family and bought some fried bread that the woman had just made. We watched them catch fish for their dinner, and saw the fish struggle until it had wrestled it's way out of the boy's hands. I, of course, was kind of grossed out.
We took a traditional reed boat to the next part of the island, accompanied by two local girls, sisters, one of whom flashed me her panty-less bottom more than once. They impressed us by singing, even songs in English and French. Then, of course, they asked for propina. Val gave them cheetos.
Back on the other boat (that actually had an engine) we began the three hour sail to the island of Amantani, where we planned on spending the night. On the boat, we met an Australian named Al, who joined our group. We spent the three hour boat ride chatting with Al and playing UNO (yes, the UNO that came with my library care package.) When we got to the island, we found a family to house and feed all 5 of us. I was very impressed by our host family for the night. The father was so friendly. He proudly gave Peter and I a tour of his garden, and made sure we had everything we needed. The mother never stopped smiling. The plaster around the windows had peeled, revealing the mud bricks underneath, they had no electricity, an outhouse in the garden (no shower), but they were so happy. I thought all 5 of us would be sleeping in one room, but we were spread out in 3 different rooms (each room was basically a different building. Their house was a very small complex of mud huts), which made me wonder if all 6 members of the family slept in one room.
After lunch, we hiked up to the top of the mountain, where there were some pre-Incan ruins and an awesome view for sunset. We beat all the other tourists to the top, so we had the place to ourselves for a little while. While I was up there, two local girls in full traditional dress decided I looked like a volleyball player, and began setting a ball to me. We peppered for quite a while. There I was, in the middle of pre-Incan ruins on an island in the middle of the highest navigable lake in the world, playing volleyball with two Peruvian girls. Just your average Thursday night.
Then the sun set. It was awesome. Being in Cusco, I miss sunsets. With the height of the surrounding mountains, it just gets dark. But the sunset over the lake just kept getting better and better. You can't create colors like that. After the sun disappeared and so did all the colors, the stars came out. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars in my life. While looking for all those southern hemisphere constellations you can't see north of the equator, a shooting star went by. Ahhh, perfection.