here, there, everywhere

Our second day in Puno, we went on a two day tour of Lake Titicaca itself, which began with a stop at the floating, manmade Uros Islands: 

As your boat draws closer to the islands, the women all stand on the banks waving and calling out hello in Aymara - it's a very strange feeling, making the whole trip feel vaguely theme-park-ish. On the plus side, I now know how to say hello in Aymara. 

above: check out the solar panel behind the guy! 

Once on the island, we were given a presentation on how the islands were made using a miniature island with all the materials, complete with little tiny reed houses and - even better - tiny dolls wearing the same hat as the islander showing us how they built everything. We kept waiting for tiny dolls of tourists and a tour guide, but they never showed up. 

above: Olga, who sold me a miniature straw boat. 

Afterwards, we were given time to poke around the island and look inside the houses, which felt even stranger, since as far as I know the people showing us around actually lived there. We didn't poke around too much (though I did buy a miniature straw boat from one of the ladies, above) but it was cool just walking around on the reeds -your feet sink unnervingly deep into them with each step, so it takes some getting used to. 

Touristy as the experience was (and I'm okay with that - I'd rather show up in a place expecting tourists than go bug some people who weren't), the manmade islands were definitely unlike anything I'd ever seen.