The lake is the highest in the world, 12,500 feet above sea level, and the biggest in South America, and is famous for its 'floating islands.' We got there in the afternoon, checked into our hostel (which was the most amazing one I've ever stayed at) and walked around the town some before it got dark. The next day, we got up extremely early to start our tour of the lake and the islands at 6:30 A.M. Our first stop was at Uros, one of the Floating Islands, which are called so because they are all man-made. To make then, the people took the root of reeds and layered root, then reeds, root, then reeds until they had enough layers to be solid. Then they laid reeds over the entire thing...it is pretty incredible. Everything they have on the island (houses, chairs, boats, etc) are all made entirely of reeds as well. We took a ride on one of the boats to another island...so I can say I rode a boat made entirely of reeds on the highest lake in the world :) After Uros, we were in the boat for about three hours to get to the next island, Taquile, where less than 2,000 people live and speak only Quechua, the language of the Incans. The island itself was lackluster; however, the views were absolutely amazing. When we got off the boat and looked across the lake we saw the mountains of Bolivia. The lake itself is divided between Peru and Bolivia (60/40), but since North Americans have to pay $130 to enter Bolivia, we did it from the Peru side :-) After over six hours on a boat and an eleven hour tour, we were definitely exhausted but had a great day exploring Lago Titicaca. The name comes from Quechua (Incan language) and Aymara (pre-Incan language), 'titi' meaning 'puma' and 'caca' meaning 'grey,' therefore meaning grey puma. If you look at the map of the lake and turn it upside down, it actually looks like a puma pouncing on its prey.
Before I left I had gotten these bites on my foot that were itching and didn't think any more of it until they started multiplying and gradually moving up my leg and onto my back. I asked my host mom about it and she thinks they're 'pulgas,' aka FLEAS! So perfect. The place I work at for kids after school has all poor children that attend it, and she says it was probably passed to me from them. Many of them live in crowded homes with a ton of family members, dogs, cats, etc, so the fleas can be easily passed on. I had to buy spray to try to kill them in my room, and for humans they just say to try not to itch them to prevent infection, but there's not much more you can do. Not a lot of people can answer 'What'd you do this summer?' with 'I got fleas in Peru...' haha, life goes on :-)
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