My First Big Adventure!

Photos are coming I promise! I just need to figure out the best way to get them to everyone… any suggestions… ?

I had my first big adventure last weekend! I traveled to Puno and Lake Titicaca (southern Peru, lake Titicaca lies between Peru and Bolivia) There is much to tell but I will keep it short. We took a night bus (double decker, coach bus style) and arrived in Puno (on the coast) at around 5am. We had 2 and a half hours to clean up, eat, and nap at a hostel before we began our tour of the lake. First we visited the Floating Islands. There are 52 (maybe 53) islands that are home to anywhere from 10-50 people each. Normally one or two families per island. The islands are manmade. Very cool. Then we traveled 3 and a half hours to a much larger island, Amantani, that is home to 10 communities. Here we spent the night with families. I stayed with 2 other girls from our trip with a super nice family. Traditionally these families speak Quechua but the father and daughter of our host family spoke Spanish so that made communication much easier! The inhabitants here have very limited electricity. The compound we stayed in only had a few light blubs. We used candles in the bedroom. The food was fantastic! All of it was grown on the island and so delicious! All of our meals were vegetarian because they only eat meat on special occasions. At night they dressed us up in traditional clothing and we went to a fiesta with the other tourists and host families! We also hiked to the top of the island/mountain to an ancient temple to see to sunset. The next day we traveled to another island, Taquile, to hike and have a look around. You could see the shores of both Peru and Bolivia from both islands! That’s the super short version!
Both places were absolutely beautiful and made living simply look very appealing. Although I felt as if the main livelihood of all of these communities was tourism. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were exploiting them.
The last week has also been great. I am now working with the 3-4 year olds at my placement and finally starting to feel at home! We do either one or two exercise a morning. I am normally in charge of photocopying to assignments… we use stamps to replicate the same image for everyone. That means lots and lots of stamping! We spend most of our time eating breakfast, snack, or lunch. I have started bringing extra snack for me and any of the children who forget theirs or are still hungry. They have lots of fruit; plantains, oranges, Clementines, apples! I am continually amazed in the order in the daily chaos. I am hoping to find out more about the day-care/pre-school center next week.
Also, Corpus Christi (a huge Catholic celebration) was Thursday so the whole city came out to celebrate! Everything was cancled for the day so everyone could celebrate. The parties started Tuesday night, the parades Wednesday, and Thursday was the big celebration. It was super crowded but also a really great experience.
Everything else is going really well! … I’ll update soon. I’m headed to Arequipa this Thursday!