Puno, Lake Titicaca and the floating islands of Uros and the “knitting islands” of Amantani and Taquille

In Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca for the night and heading to Cuzco tomorrow. There were so many pictures to upload from my recent three days and two nights on the islands of Lake Titicaca, that I am hoping a slideshow with captions will help to translate the amazing experience much better than I ever could in writing. 🙂

Note: I realize now that the slideshow does not show the captions that I wrote for each picture. I added the gallery below, which does seem to have most of the captions, but out of order. Since I´ve been at the computer for almost 3 hours now (it takes awhile to upload!) I´m going to leave it and try to fix it in a few days. Regardless, I hope you can piece together the story in the photos until I do!

Ms. Bruck

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: Went for a nice little hike around the island of Taquille and came across many arches. The red flowers above are used to dye the wool they knit with on the island.

: Sheep on Taquille= wool= knitting. 🙂

: Outside the front of homestay in Amantani… so much of my time on these islands reminded me of Tanzania

: Room at homestay on Amantani. The luxury of solar panels meant light at night!

: The Señora of our homestay on the island of Amantani came to meet us… you can she her spinning wool as we walk along the beach back to her home.

: The floating islands of Uros have been in existence for over 900 years. The inhabitants have to constantly add more reeds to the top layer in order to replenish the rotting reeds below.

: Waiting for an informative session about the history and construction of the floating islands.

: A first glimpse of the floating islands of Uros

: Start of boat ride across Lake Titicaca to the floating islands of Uros, and the “knitting islands” of Amantani and Taquille

: I ended up knitting with this man from the Island of Taquille most of the boat ride back to Puno. So interesting to compare techniques and patterns!

: Amazing trout for lunch on the island of Taquille!

: Traditional dress on the island of Taquille. They swear they dress this way everyday, not just on Independence Day.

: This man took the time to explain to me the meaning of the different symbols in the belt that I bought from him. It was such a nice exchange. He seemed genuinely excited that someone wanted to know the meaning behind the object that they had bought!

: Men knit on the island of Taquille, while women spin the wool and weave the belts that the men wear. Men knit their hats: Red means “married” and Half red/ half white means “single”

: One symbol the appears over and over again is the “6 suyos”. According the man I bought the belt from, these are 6 crops, or elements of sustanence on the island, such as quinoa, corn, fish, etc. According to the internet, it is the 6 communities on the island. I guess I will have to do more research!