Lake Titicaca is Puma of Rock

The floating islands of Uros in Lake Titicaca.

In the town of Yunguyo near the border with Bolivia.
Madeline asks.  Whats going on there Dad?
Ohhh  it's adult dogs only .

No man's land, between the Peruvian and Bolivian border.

The town of Copacabana, Bolivia.

Cold!!!!!!!

Looking at the island of the Moon from our room

The name Titicaca translates into Puma of Rock.
This is the rock that they believe the name originated from. This rock it's located right next to a ceremonial place
in the island of the Sun, almost in the middle of the lake.
Have a look at the bottom left corner of the rock, see the mouth of the puma?

Legend says that Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo (children's of the Sun), (brother and sister), (husband and wife).
Arrived into this world from near these rock to create the empire of the Incas

Ruins of Chinkana in the island of the Sun.

There are about 2000 people still living in the Island, they are the original decedents of the Aymaras and
Quechuans, they are mostly farmers and fishermen, it's only recently that tourism has touched the island.

This is a sacrificial rock table where they believe animals and even humans were sacrificed.
Lucky they told us that cause Madeline and I nearly sat there for smoko. Seriously!

So Madeline and I walked the whole length of the island.
11 km in 3 hours, sounds easy but we were at more than 4000 m above sea level.
And I must add, it was one of the most amazing walks ever.
Thank you Maddy!

This photo was done on a timer for the show.
But we did really crash on the side of the road for almost an hour.

There are 36 islands in the lake. The island of the Sun being the largest.
The temperature of the lake fluctuates between 10c to 12c 

Life on the island is tranquil.

No. This is not the Greek islands!

Here on the island of the Sun if you are a man and marry a foreigner, then you are both welcome to live in the
island.  But if you are a women and marry a foreigner then you are not welcome to live in the island.
This is based on the fact that they believe that a man shall provided and look after his family.

Bringing home the bacon

Island of the Moon.
We never made it there, but there is a ruin temple there where they kept beautiful virgins.
And look at the time!

No cars, not even motorbikes here, only donkeys to do the transport.

Just awesome.

Madeline said that before she goes back to Australia she would get one of those street drinks in a plastic bag.

Off to another island.

The very famous Floating Islands of Uros.

The islands of the Uros are in the lake Titicaca about 6 km off the city of Puno.

The Islands are entirely made out of totora reeds that is constantly rotting away and have to be replace on average
every 3 months. The reeds grow naturally in the lake.
The islands are anchored by ropes to wooden poles that had been driven to the bottom of the lake

Their reed boats can last up to a year.

You sexy thing!

Caviar.
The reeds were also part of their daily diet.

Madeline, Again catching the moment.

The main purpose of the floating islands was to be able to move out quickly in case danger arises.

The Highlands (El Altiplano)

La Puerta del Sol (Sun Gate) at Tiahuanaco, Bolivia.
Near Lake Titicaca at 3800m  above sea level is the highest navigable lake in the world.

After coming out of the Amazon jungle we were all nursing  insect bites , lots of insect bites.

Army, Navy, Police and Air Force.
At the Main Square in Puerto Maldonado.
Puerto Maldonado is the city centre of the province of Madre de Dios  in the Amazon part of Peru.

Every Sunday in the Main Square in Puerto Maldonado there is some kind of parade.
Here is some local school.

Whilst on the other side of town, near the mercado (markets) the boys are playing cards for keeps on the streets.
For some reason the locals pull their shirts up to stay cool.

This is the Continental bridge that has finally and only recently joined  the roads from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans.

For many years many presidents had tried to make the road link between Peru and Brasil but fail due to the geographical
challenges of the Amazon.  The locals believe that the new amazonian route between the two countries will bring progress  but
they also believe it will bring new access to more Amazon exploitation

The owner of this house advertises a painter (pintor).
I got two theories on this:
A. He is a really, really good painter and he is been working flat out for many, many years, or.
B. He is a really bad painter, completely broke maybe a drunk, lazy ass and bullshit artist.

Every afternoon the flag goes down.

Coming back to Cusco from the jungle on an overnighter bus wasn't fun so we thought we deserved a breakfast treat overlooking the Plaza de Armas.

This is the very famous 12 angled rock.

Besides the three good looking people in the street corner you can also see the mix of  Inca and Spanish architecture.
The locals like to say that the bases of the buildings have been made by the Incas and the top parts have been made
by the Incapables.

Madeline and I were't looking forwards going up hill.

Beautiful hand made rugs and table runners

the monkey

Hand made with alpaca, and natural colours.

This is the colonial bakery shop in Pisac where Madeline went to buy fresh bread every morning.
She always came back with a new story like, the bread ran out. The bread was so hot it burned a hole in the bag.
They were baking piglets. An old lady in the queue cut in front of me, how rude. I fed the guinea pigs. They were baking
guinea pigs. One of the guinea pigs has had babies.  A dog chased me until I gave him a bread roll and the best one of all was the morning after the Peruvian
independence day "I think the baker was drunk, he was grumpy and acting funny".

Movie night. Wow... we sure do know how to eat popcorn.

As we travelled around Peru we noticed the ladies in each region had their own type of hat they all used to wear that represented their village.

Had to do something on the 2hr trip to Yunguyu

Madeline buying our favourite lemon lollies for half the usual price..... off the tourist trail.

Fitting into the Puno known tricyclo (tricycle). Whilst Louise and I got the romantic spot we stuck Madeline in the boot..... and didn't she enjoy that!

Leaving Peru into Bolivia. We suspected that these guys were carrying goods across the border in dribs and drabs from the big trucks parked on the Peruvian side of the border because the trucks are not registered to enter Bolivia.

The three of us can fit on one of these whilst she was a full house.

The Tiahuanaco civilisation started as a small agricultural village about 1500 BC .
This is The Sun Gate. Also it's a calendar . And in combination they could determined the yearly moments of when to
start working the land' when to plant and when to harvest.

This statue is not in as good condition as the one below because they used granite instead of volcanic rock.

Ponce Stela in the sunken courtyard of the Tiahuanaco, Kalasasaya temple .
Notice the fine details on his boardies.

This was truly amazing, they called it the ear rock.  The inside was shaped like a human ear and projected sound fantastically.

Entrance to the Kalasasaya temple, Tiahuanaco, Bolivia.
This is where the currently president of Bolivia Evo Morales was sworn into power on two occasions.

Heads carved in stone in the semi-underground temple.

In the complex there are three main sections:
Top temple, in a pyramid form above ground for the celestial gods, like  the sun, moon, stars and birds like the condor.
Ground level temple, for the living god (the chief), the puma, corn, potato, mountains and others.
Underground temple for the dead, the water and the snake.

There are more than 150  stone carved heads around this semi-underground temple.
I believe they were war heroes, government chiefs, musos, priests, sport heroes even some reality TV stars. Maybe!
Once they started worshipping TV reality people, thats when their decadence started.
  

Madeline getting her revenge for not sitting in the front.

This was in Bolivia. These ladies were rushing from town to catch the collectivo's (mini van buses) back into town.

Waiting for a ride after the ruins. Madeline tried to lighten the mood.

A taxi rolled up and the ladies who had been rushing down the road ran up out and tried to take it off us. Luckily there was too many of them and we got it in the end.

Getting served take away Peruvian style. Fried chicken and fried peruvian corn.  Yum.

In a bag!
Yummy!