Lake Titicaca

The bus ride to Puno, the port town to Lake Titicaca, went over a 14,300 foot pass. Doug hadn´t been over 10,000 before so it was a first for him. we arrived in Puno and took a mototaxi to our hotel. a mototaxi is a motorcycle with two covered seats attached to the back over two wheels. we walked around a bit, shopped for alpaca textiles, and then i got diarea and doug got altitude sickness. so we went to bed at like 7. and skipped dinner. our lunch that day was a great empanada with meat inside and deep friend whole potato and fresh juice for 2 dollars. rad.
next day we hit the lake. Lake Titicaca and Puno are at about 12,300 feet. yikes, Dougs been breathing hard. we took a boat out onto the lake to visit the floating islands made of reeds. the island is called Uros and the reeds are harvested right there in the shalllow bay next to Puno. the reeds are basically closed cell fibers so they float. the islands are about 10 feet thick of reeds and the water about 25 feet deep. they just keep adding more reeds on top. its is pretty spungy. they took us across to another island in their reed boats to a restaurant on reeds were we ate friend trout and potatoes. always potatoes in peru. hell, they were domesticated here.