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Seeing Peru's Amantani Island Through The Eyes of a 13-Year-Old

All this week, Nathan Paluck will be filling us in on "The Real Peru" outside the capital city of Lima. Any questions or suggestions, send 'em to us here.

You can't visit Lake Titicaca without spending a night on one of its islands. That's what people told me, and they were right. Late Titicaca straddles Peru and Bolivia and is one of the world's highest at 2.3 miles. It has three populated islands and a series of floating, human-made reed islands. They're all reportedly amazing, but Lonely Planet advised that Amantaní Island was the least touristic, so I chose it for a night stay (LP's South America on a Shoestring was my reference throughout).

Two persistent workers at the lake dock tried selling me on a trip to the islands that included a homestay on Amantaní. Large groups of white tourists filed into tour boats. But I was determined for a DIY trip, and at 8 a.m., I and a couple dozen Quechua-speaking villagers from Amantaní embarked on the four-hour boat ride.

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