2. Travel

Peru 2012

Kay and I spent two weeks in Peru with Aaron and Yupeng - here are the highlights of the trip! Also, Carl hooked me up with a Lytro to borrow, the pictures are here: https://pictures.lytro.com/kerry/stories/42258.
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The floating islands of Uros are amazing - they take the reeds and make islands that pretty much feel like giant water beds, but made of reeds. Has a faint smell of wet reed, but
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The floating islands of Uros are amazing - they take the reeds and make islands that pretty much feel like giant water beds, but made of reeds. Has a faint smell of wet reed, but

  • Far shot of our hotel in Puno - it was way on the outside of town, but was right on Lake Titicaca had a nice view & was relatively quiet
  • Waves in the reeds as we cruised Laka Titicaca
  • The floating islands of Uros are amazing - they take the reeds and make islands that pretty much feel like giant water beds, but made of reeds. Has a faint smell of wet reed, but
  • One of the floating islands of Uros, with the inhabitants waiting to greet visitors - each island is inhabited by one family.
  • A Uros native cruising by our boat.
  • Standing on the reeds - it's squishy, but not scarily - imagine standing on a giant lump of moist hay.
  • Our guide (in the baseball cap) and the father of the family gave us demonstrations - the reed that our guide is holding is what the island is made of, and the inner parts are edlible, sort of like heart of palm, but very watery in flavor. The big dirt block with reed is a small model of how the island is made - they carve out big blocks of dirt, then attach reeds to the top.
  • They had some small models that were used humorously. The tallk round house model is in the traditional style, and the smaller square one is a modern house.
  • The edible part of the reed - just tasted like watery celery, but with much smaller fibers.
  • Kay, Aaron, and Yupeng watching the demonstration
  • Sampling the local cuisine...
  • One of the houses, some of the handicrafts.
  • They were telling us that they hunted with the very old gun, and then pantomimed hunting - right as someone behind the house threw a fake bird and a cap in the gun went off. Very funny misdirection on their part.
  • We're not 100% sure, due to cultural variations, but we think Aaron may have married this little girl accidentally.<br /> <br /> No, they split us up and took us to the various small buildings to show us how they lived, and to sell us trinkets, weavings, etc. Guess they have to make a living, and given the amount of tourism….not a bad way to do it.
  • A shot from their platform - a lookout tower type of platform, maybe 20 feet in the air. You can see one on the next island next to the white boat.
  • A view down on the island that we visited, with Aaron perusing the items available for sale.
  • Kay, trying to decide where to go next. The freakin' book wasn't local enough to describe our 20 ft by 20ft island! :)
  • The edge of the island - you can see the reeds, and then the blocks of dirt underneath
  • Aaron and Kay on the lookout tower, and I think that our island was named "Apu Kontiki", but I can't prove that - I can just read the sign, too!
  • As new boats would approach or one would leave, the inhabitants would perform a musical number welcoming you or saying good bye.
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