On Lake Titicaca

Starting off in Puno, our couple of days on the lake began with a cyclo ride to the harbour, which is one of my favourite cheesy tourist things to do.

By the water, we boarded a boat to tour Lake Titicaca. The sky was so blue, setting a beautiful background to the reeds and water. We got to upstairs on the deck, where it was sunny and breezy -- a perfect combination, save for my great mistake of not putting on sunscreen. I never burn in North America; in fact, I'd previously only burned twice in my life, which often means that I get complacent.

Unfortunately, the sun in Puno is a whole different beast and took no prisoners that morning. I burned so badly my eyes swelled up, and it took over a week to fully recover.

In the moment, however, I was naïvely enjoying the boat ride and scenery. Our first stop was the Uros floating islands. The islands -- over 100 of them scattered on the lake -- are all built from reeds and anchored to the lake-bed to stop from drifting away. The people spoke Aymara rather than Spanish, and all their houses, boats, and watchtowers were reeds.

After introductions and a demonstration of the weaving and building methods used to create an island, we split off into smaller groups. A 16 year old girl, Talia, and her mother, Nancy, showed me around their home. It was so special to see a unique culture preserved in the midst of technological boom. Most of Talia's siblings had moved to larger cities, and the population was dwindling. With the rise of tourism in the area, many of the locals were taking advantage of the new opportunities, weaving and knitting objects to sell. I bought a tapestry woven by Talia's grandmother.

After a reed boat ride across the lake to another floating island, we left Uros and moved on towards our second stop.

Taquile is a lovely island -- green terraces, grazing sheep, sparkling blue water -- but I could not appreciate that then. We disembarked, and then proceeded up a hill to the top where lunch waited. The short climb up the gentle incline was among the hardest walks of my life, and I've never felt so pathetically weak. Apparently, in my third day in high altitude, I'd recovered enough to walk normally, but not to go uphill in the slightest. I felt like my ribcage would burst, and I could barely make it more than a dozen steps without pausing for air.

My group was very patient, considering I was by far the slowest one, and the views from the top were worth it. Lunch was delicious grilled rainbow trout, which is saying something as I don't usually like fish. We wandered around a bit more after eating, browsing the markets and squares, before heading to our final destination, the Luquina Peninsula.

There, we paired up for a night of homestay and gifted the families some groceries we had purchased the previous day at the market -- rice, pasta, oil, carrots, onions, garlic, and tuna. My roommate and I were with a 24-year-old man named Juan, the last of his family of 8 who stayed on the island instead of moving to a city on the mainland. As our hosts spoke mainly Aymara, communication was limited, but we made do. There was no hot water or electricity, but the rooms were nice, clearly built for guests. Climbing up to the house was no less pathetic on my part though.

That night, we peeled potatoes with the family outside, and dinner was quinoa soup, rice, and pasta with vegetables. As it was pitch black by then, we headed to bed at 7:30.

I woke up with my face on fire, feeling the full effects of the worst sunburn of my life. It was just after 7, and we set off rolling out fry bread for breakfast.

As the sun came out, we headed down to the fields, pick-axes in hand, to help work for an hour, accompanied by the family's 2 dogs.

From there, we took their donkey for a walk further down the island and up the hill, which was becoming easier to climb than the previous day. We could see so much of the terraces, the islands in the distance, the lake so wide it looked like the ocean -- a stunning view in perfect calm and quiet.

It reminded me of the landscapes from Moana, and I had the soundtrack stuck in my head the rest of the day.

After a lunch of soup, potatoes, and cheese, we signed our family's guest book, and they dressed us in traditional gear for our send-off -- lots of skirt layers and pom-poms.

With final goodbyes on the beach, we sped across the lake and back to Puno.