Peru: The Blur

We're back from our blogging sabbatical and here to talk about our Peru trip!

Non-essential details:

People keep asking why we went there and I have no good answer. The idea started around Christmas time and we invited my brother to join us but never heard back from him (I guess he forgot?). Then we invited some new friends we'd met because something about them made us feel like they'd be great travel companions. And then later we found out my brother (we originally invited) was planning a trip there with my other brother (and without us?) and then we all just combined forces and it snowballed into a perfect trip with a perfect group of great souls.

Most-essential details:

Our first stop (no need to mention our real first stop Lima because we were only there one night and all we did was barter with crazy taxi drivers, and sleep) was Puno, home of Lake Titicaca.
LAKE TITICACA~just the name of the lake alone is reason enough to go there. Titicaca. Ha! That elementary humor was encouraged throughout the day seeing as how our first stop was the Temple of Fertility. We had to stop there because we are willing to try anything to boost our fertility odds. But it wasn't quite what we expected...
It was a place made to take advantage of the immaturity of tourists and make you giggle as you walk through it:

These hundreds of years old "mushroom shaped" structures were used to help infertile animals. Farmers would bring their animals and walk them around the path through these stones and it would help them conceive? 

Alright, enough awkwardness.

Look at this colorful door!:

I immediately fell in love with Peru and its bright colors and beautiful textiles. As we drove through the hillsides to get to Puno I noticed that there were a lot more women in the fields than men, and they work in skirts looking really tough and classy all at the same time.

I liked the juxtaposition of this intense soccer game going on with the sheep being herded on the sidelines.

All the ladies are so classy. 

Before the trip I learned about the endangered Scrotum frog that lives in lake Titicaca and got my heart set on seeing one. I love frogs, not as much as when I was a kid, but I still get excited about them. And for obvious reasons I was really hoping to see the Lake Titicaca Scrotum frog. And we did!

They were pretty funny looking. I've never seen a frog with eyes on the front of its head. And it has excessive amounts of skin that help with respiration in the high altitude. Funny little things.

Moving on.

Lake Titicaca was a dream. The entire trip to Peru was a dream, really. But it was totally enchanting to go on a private little boat to a private little island where the Uru people live.

This little dog that lives on the island was SO SO excited to see us, he jumped right into our boat: 

This is the opposite of NYC living. So quiet and unplugged and all of the people you interact with everyday are people you know really really well.

The ground was really springy, it was a strange sensation to go from our sea legs to our trampoline legs. 

I'm not sure what's going on in these pictures:

We love stick.

These reeds are what sustain the islanders. Such respect and awe for all that can be done with these reeds! We had a lesson on how to use the reeds to catch fish and birds.

And had a turn at harvesting them. 

They're way better at it.

And for dinner, we had the guinea pig. Ew. It was not possible to remove the thought of a furry pet from my mind while eating this. I only had an itty bitty bite.