Our day started with a hearty breakfast provided by our host mama. While the night was cold, and the painted concrete floor even colder if you had to get up in the middle of the night, there was plenty of insulation under the many layers of wool blankets and we were quite comfortable.

Once Breakfast was finished, we headed down to the meet the rest of our tours group at the quay for 8 am. There we all said goodbye to our hosts, and departed by boat to Taquile Island, in the middle of Lake Titicaca.

We summited the island (yes just what my knees needed) and explored the interest countryside and life of the 7 communities on this island. 7 communities, because that’s the number of fresh water springs there are on the island.

Quite an interesting method of governing. Very socialistic in nature, and seem to work very well.

We arrived at the central square, and took some time to look at the knitting ( done by the men of the community) and the weaving (done by the women). Some ver lovely items!

Our walk continued giving up more spectacular views of the Andes in the distance across the lake as well as Copacabana in Bolivia. Yes, This one is the original!

We stopped for lunch at a lovely family run spot, and boy did our table have a view!

After lunch we headed down to our boat for our 3 hour ride back to Puno. A lovely relaxing ride watching the ever changing mountain scenery and the birds playing about in the water and above.

Finally
, we reached Puno, and took a bus transfer to our hotel, and then within half an hour met the van that would take us to the Juliaca Airport.  Glenn and Gwen’s flight with LATAM was at 8:00 pm, and ours was supposed to be at 9:30, but as luck would have it, our flight was delayed a little under an hour! We arrived in Lima just shortly before midnight, and to our hotel by cab, at around  12:45.  I must admit that when the aircraft took off, and the cabin was pressurized I fell immediately to sleep and didn’t wake up until we landed ( proper oxygen had a lot to do with that!)

We checked into our hotel in Miraflores district, and went immediately to bed…looking forward to a great sleep at sea level!