After an hour walk the following morning in the rain, we arrived at the local harbor to catch another boat an hour further to the island of tequila. The boat dropped us off at the bottom of a few hundred foot tall staircase which we huffed and puffed up battling the altitude with every step. A local guide met us at the top and shopped us around to different families until we found a place that hadn’t flooded in the previous nights rainstorm. Tequile in comparison to amantani was far more developed with a tourist infrastructure of restaurants and whatnots and a central handicraft market where they sold excellent island made textiles. Tour groups would pour in around lunch, but after a few hours the island was basically tourist free for those spending the night.
The day we arrived on tequile there happened to be another island wide festival. It consisted mostly of various groups of marching bands with drums and flutes accompanied by dancing women in amazingly colorful costumes. The men dressed all in black with some colorful bags and hats, while the women looked like giant flowers, each wearing about ten petticoats and twirling balls of yarn. There was a great view from one of the rooftops overlooking the central plaza and down into one of the valleys where we could see the various parades come bouncing through, do their song and dance, and continue on around the island. It was a beautiful island in general, with plenty of incan terracing and ancient stone trails around the island, but certainly not as remote and heavenly as its neighbor amantani.
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