What a wonderful weekend! Part 2

We departed from the floating islands (Islas de los Uros), and we boated off to the island of Taquile, which is a real island, not a floating one. It took almost three hours to get to the island! I didn't realize how very large Lake Titicaca is! But we had a great time on the bonding on the boat.

Here we are inside the boat. That's Alfonso, our guide. He was cool.

 

And here are some of the wonderful people that I spent the weekend with! We're on the top of the boat.

Did I mention that this lake is beautiful? Oh my, it's gorgeous!!!



And I have been so blessed to know these two awesome ladies, Sydney and Amy!

So, we eventually arrived in Taquile. Our guide told us that we had some time to climb to the plaza. It really was a bit of a climb! But it was also one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen! The pictures... really don't do it justice at all. But here they are anyway!

Here is the island as we approach it by boat.

This is on the walk up to the plaza.

It was reallllllllly pretty.

We made it to the plaza!!

Here's the view from the plaza.

And here is the view inland from the plaza.

From the plaza, our guide suggested that we take a quicker way down to get back to the boat. Indeed, the return trip was much shorter. It was also very very very steep. Oh man. It was a tricky descent. But so pretty!!! And quite fun.

We got back on the boat in time for the sunset. Oh wow.

And here I am on the boat with some cool people! It's Amy, Sydney, and Lauren!

We took a long boat ride back to Puno, and from there we hopped on the bus and went to the center of Puno. We were to go to dinner at Balcones de Puno, a restaurant with a dinner show of traditional Peruvian dances. For dinner, I ate alpaca.

We walked down one street in Puno, on the way to the restaurant.

Here are my friends at the restaurant!

And here is the alpaca that I ate.



And here is some of the dancing!!

 That brings us to the end of Saturday! After the restaurant, we all went back to the hotel to sleep. We still had all day on Sunday, which I will write about tomorrow.