Lake Titicaca

There's an undeniable romanticism about the thought of the world's highest navigable lake, and Lake Titicaca is remarkable. It's huge. From Puno, the main town on the Peruvian shores, it looks big but not that big as two peninsulae hide the sheer size. But once you get past those peninsulae the lake opens up and shows its scale.

At over 3,800m coming from Cusco seemed sensible as I was already acclimatised to the altitude, but I wasn't prepared for the chill. My hostel room on the first night was distinctly cold and I was grateful for the thick blankets layered on the bed. However a welcome contrast to Cusco was the prices of accommodation and food.

There are hordes of tour operators in Puno, mostly offering the same sort of trip out on the lake. Lake Titicaca has several island communities, with three in particular the target of most tours – Uros, Amantani and Taquile. The standard two-day trip takes you to each of those three places and you have a homestay on the night in the local community.

A homestay sounded attractive but I wasn't sure about joining the crowds all doing the same thing, especially after Machu Picchu. Further investigation and close reading of my Lonely Planet suggested that a similar homestay experience with fewer people could be found on the Capachica Peninsula, within sight of both Amantani and Taquile. The problem was getting there, until I emailed a tour operator and was offered a transfer to the peninsula via the Uros islands for a relatively low price, with a homestay booked in the village of Llachon, and I'd have to find my own way back to Puno at the end of it.

I was glad I'd chosen the option. I was picked up in the morning as part of a group overnighting on Amantani and we stopped at Uros first. The Uros islands are remarkable; a group of 80 or 90 'islands' made of reeds. The people collect huge lumps of earth from the reed beds as the foundations, anchor them in the lake, and then literally pile reeds on top of the foundations to a depth of a couple of metres. And then they put houses made of reeds on top, and live there. The reed bed is squishy and soft to walk on and many people go barefoot. Every three months you have to top up your reeds and every 25 years the island is replaced, with the old island towed to the rest of the reed beds and abandoned. Four or five families live on each little island and there's over 2,000 people in the community.

Unfortunately as floating reed islands are so unusual, and Uros is really close to Puno, they're a major tourist draw. And tourist money is paying for improvements in their lifestyle – most families have a solar panel to generate enough electricity for lighting and tiny televisions in each hut – but it means that if you visit you will probably find yourself on a tourist conveyor belt.

We stopped at a little island and our tour guide, Elvis (yes really) talked us through how the islands work, complete with a demonstration in miniature from the island's 'president', the current leader of the five families who lived on the island we stopped on. Then we had a mini-tour of the little house in which the president's daughter, 25-year-old Mariella, lived – a single room with a bed, a table with a TV, and hooks on the walls for her clothes. We saw the resident flamingo and the place where they cooked. Naturally we also were invited to look at the textiles and mini reed boats they were selling, and I did buy a cushion cover as I bought one in Uzbekistan and I thought I'd continue the tradition.

Then Mariella and her mum sang us a song in Aymara, the local language; a song in Spanish; and incongruously and oddly 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean' in English. After that we were invited to take a ride in a boat made of reeds across the channel (an extra S/. 10, which everyone ended up doing), to visit the 'main' island which has a little shop on it. There were three or four groups of tourists here too.

So it was good to be dropped off, some two hours later, on the peninsula. “This is Calixto, he's your papa,” said Elvis, and the boat headed off.

Me and Calixto - he dressed me up in local costume

My host, Calixto, is I'd estimate in his early fifties but it's hard to tell, compared to us soft-living Westerners. He wore the local outfit of dark trousers, cream shirt and a dark waistcoat with embroidery. A trio of ladies were also on the dock, waiting for a group arriving on the next boat, all in their colourful skirts and tops and hats with four big pom-poms on them and carrying spindles. It would be easy to think that the inhabitants of Llachon wear the local dress for the benefit of tourists, but as I wandered around I saw enough people just going about their daily business in the same sort of outfits that I think it's actually still normal everyday dress.

Calixto took me up to a little complex of rooms complete with a communal kitchen and dining area which I think must form the basis of the community homestay programme, which seems to be run for the community and by the community. My room was a spacious, basic hut with a double bed and a bathroom that even had a shower – no decoration or fanciness, but comfortable enough and with a spectacular view of the lake. After the group from the next boat had arrived and been sorted into their rooms I was served lunch, a basic but tasty meal of barley soup followed by a plate of grilled cheese, a bit like halloumi, some veg, and a selection of different potatoes. All this was washed down by a sort of tea made by steeping the local thyme (a little minty) in hot water – delicious. Calixto ate with me and we managed a bit of conversation despite my lack of Spanish and his lack of English. He has three sons, one living in Llachon, and his wife is currently in hospital having had an operation. Two different ladies helped him out by giving me lunch and dinner on the second day so I think the community is supporting him while Senora Calixto is absent.

Llachon church

Llachon has two high points, both with pre-Inca archaeological sites on them. I walked up to the nearer one on the first afternoon and the higher, slightly further one on the next morning. On the second afternoon I just walked along the road until it ran out. And I sat and read overlooking the lake. There is very little vehicle traffic on the peninsula so it's very quiet, the silence broken only by the wind and the livestock all the people keep. Everyone seems to have a little flock of sheep, a couple of cows, a donkey, and perhaps a pig or some chickens. Most of the pigs seemed to have piglets and there were a lot of lambs around. As I walked I saw people tilling their fields by hand, trying to get something out of what looks like very dry soil. There were a lot of boats fishing too and several fish farms just off the shore. It's a very basic, simple, tough life by the looks of things. Llachon has two schools next to each other (I'm guessing primary and at least early secondary), and the people I saw were predominantly older, or school-age. Apart from the girl who sorted my dinner on the second night, and Calixto's son, I saw very few young adults.

It was easy getting back to Puno via minibus and when I arrived it was the start of a big parade which was celebrating the local university. This thing went on for hours; each faculty had an accompanying band and were wearing different varieties of local dress. In the evening they were out again in sequinned costumes, a little the worse for wear, but still smiling despite the afternoon rain which had fallen.

The homestay was definitely the right thing to do, especially after speaking to others who'd gone to one of the islands for the night and said it was pretty busy. Highly recommended ...

Tips and tricks

• I arranged my homestay via All Ways Travel in Puno but the community association does have an email address - llachonkantuta@hotmail.com
• Getting to and from Puno to the Capachica peninsula is easy. Check with a hostel or hotel where they leave from - I think it's Avenida Floral near Avenida El Sol, as that's where mine stopped on the way back, but it could be elsewhere. Jump in a minibus with the driver yelling "Capachica" or even better, "Llachon". You might need to change at Capachica in the market for Llachon. The total journey time is around two and a half hours. I paid S/. 2 from Llachon to Capachica and S/. 5 from Capachica to Puno. In Llachon, the buses stop just near the main plaza.