Day 5 Taquile Island

August 17^th:  We got up early, had breakfast and got on the boat.  An hour and ½ later we were at Taquile Island.  All around the islands and shores of Lake Titicaca are hills that have terracing on them.  These terraces were made by the people that  lived during the period of Tiawanaku, well before the Incas. 

Getting on the boat to go to Taquile Island.

Terracing

Terracing

The beginning of the hike up.

On the way up.

We hiked up to the top where we visited a shop that sold knitting done by the men on the island.  We bought a couple of hats. 

The Plaza about 3/4 of the way up.

Mom taking a picture of Bob taking a picture of Mom.

The guys hanging out on the Plaza.

Local boy flying his kite.

The hats we bought.

Kids playing on the Plaza.

Local boy.

We had lunch and then had to hike down 540 steps on the other side of the island to get back on the boat. 

Lunch

Just before we started down.

Just before we start down.

The start of the 540 steps down to the dock.

Part way down.

On the way down.

The last few steps.

We then headed back to Puno.  The waves picked up and we had to slow down from 5 miles an hour to 2 or 3.  It was pretty rough.  We again had to navigate through the reed fields in the bay to get back to Puno.   

                             

 The reed fields on the way back to Puno.

We got back to Puno at 4:15pm instead of the 3:00pm when we were supposed to arrive.  We headed to the hotel and got our luggage and then piled into a van.  We were to drive back to La Paz and then eat.  Well we could tell we were not going to arrive at La Paz until very late.  So we suggested we stop and get rotisserie chicken to go.  We did and everyone enjoyed something to eat. 

Dinner on the way back to La Paz.

We got to the border just as it was closing for the night, 8:30pm.  Our guide, Luis, talked them into staying and getting us through.  If they would not have done this we would have just got in the van and driven in anyway.  It is a wild-west type border town. We arrived at our hotel at 10:30pm very exhausted.  Every day had been filled with a lot of hiking and sitting in either boats or vans.