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Published: October 21st 2009
Traditional Dance Off!
Lovely costumes at the local festival in Puno, PeruHola Everyone,
So it´s been a while, last time we wrote we were at Machu Pichu. From there we moved on to Puno in the south of Peru. The town itself was less than inspiring but we were lucky enough to be there for the annual festival which saw people from the surrounding villages turn out in their hundreds. The costumes were beautiful and the dancing fantastic. Chris´s favourite being the men pretending to be drunk and swinging their sticks and (empty) bottles around their heads. It was a great experience to see all the traditional dancing as well as the outfits. Puno sits on the shores of the overwhelmingly beautiful Lake Titicaca where we embarked on a three day boat tour to take in three of the most stunning islands. First we visited the Uros Islands, entirely made of reeds they are imaginitively named ´The Floating Islands´. This has to go down as one of the strangest places we´ve ever visited. If two families have a falling out, they simply machete the island in two and float it to a different part of the lake. It was such a privilige to visit such a place and the people were
Great Dancer
This guy could really move so friendly to us, showing us around their reed homes and taking us for a ride on their reed boat. All this on top of taking the time to demonstrate how the islands are formed and demonstrate their grasp of English with a rather sketchy rendition of ´Row Row Row Your Boat´. All of the inhabitants were very short and wearing the most beautiful traditional costumes. Hopefully some of the attached photos will do it justice as to how spectacular a place it is.
After a couple of hours dawdling through the shimmering lake we reached our final destination for day one, the Amantani Island. Here we were introduced to our ´parents for the night´ Juana and Jose, a lovely and very very very old couple who welcomed us into their home as if we were family. Staying in a house made of mud with no electricity and an outside toilet sounds like roughing it but we absolutely loved it. After a strange lunch of what looked like human fingers but turned out to taste like parsnips (maybe human fingers do!!!) we took ourselves off for a romantic walk in the hills and enjoyed some incredible views as the
sun was setting. Back at the house, we were once again fed but this time in the mud hut kitchen with the whole family. We had taken them some strawberries, mangos and kiwi fruit as they don´t have access to much on the island. We thought they would be pleased but we were pretty astonished with their reaction, they looked like they had won the lottery. Once we´d finished the meal they dressed us up in traditional clothing for the evening´s entertainment. Em was put in four skirts (sometimes the women wear up to 15 during a fiesta) and Chris was put in a poncho. We looked tremendous I think you´ll agree. Then it was off in the pitch black to the fiesta where we danced the night away with Juana who must be at least 150 years old but moves like a professional dancer! All in all we had the most amazing time with them and it was with a heavy heart that we said our goodbyes the following morning.
The last stop on the tour was the Island of Taquile where we spent the day walking through cute villages and taking in the breathtaking views of Lake
The Uros Islands
Floating Islands on Lake Titicaca, Peru Titicaca. We were made to dress up and dance before they would feed us lunch but we were quite up for it after the events of the previous night. Chris was even made the chief of our tour group!
What a great way to say goodbye to our favourite country so far....Peru and now on to Bolivia. A pretty straightforward border crossing took us into Copacobana, also on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We spent a couple of days here just relaxing, enjoying the beach and climbing the big hill one evening for the beautiful sunset. Still at altitude this is harder than it sounds. What looked like a 20 minute walk actually took us over an hour as we had to stop for shortness of breath. Now that we´re down at sea level again it´s quite a relief and we feel pretty fit in comparison!
La Paz was our next stop but before we got there we saw one of the strangest sights we´ve ever seen. We had to cross the lake and to do so we were bundled off our bus and onto a boat. What happens to the bus we thought as all our luggage
Uros Islands
Completely made of reeds! was still on it. We literally couldn´t believe our eyes when we looked back to see it being loaded onto a barge which was only just bigger than the bus. It was with wide eyes we watched it bounce over the waves tilting dangerously from side to side, almost certain we´d never see our bags again. Needless to say, it made it! We were just relieved that we were able to go on the passenger boat......ah South America, you gotta love it! La Paz turned out to be a nice place but Em started feeling pretty rough here after having a cold for the last couple of weeks and not being able to shake it. After a horrific fever filled 12 hour bus journey we decided enough was enough and in Sucre we went straight to the doctors. The poor thing, she has been so brave and not complained even when she was feeling at her worst. The doctor diagnosed Em with Bronchitis or possibly Pnuemonia.....our Spanish still needs a bit of work when it comes to medical terms but it was definitely one of the two. We had a minor freak out when he gave us the medication which
Unbelievable
Can you believe this place! was to be self injected..... er ...not going to happen. Anyway to cut a long story short, after a week of recuperation she was back on her feet and we were raring to go to the next place.
We stopped at the cute little mining town of Potosi for the night and then headed for Uyuni where we were to embark on another three day tour. After searching around town for the best deal to suit our requirements and budget we settled for an absolute belter. When we arrived at 6.30 on the first morning we were introduced to Dan and Valentina, a lovely young couple from Essex and to Paul and Philippa, equally as lovely but from Ilkley!!! Seriously they live two streets away from us. On top of that, they booked their whole trip with Tom from the Flight Centre that Em managed......small world or what. We actually ended up travelling with P & P for nearly two weeks and got on like a house on fire, they were brilliant to travel with and we are really happy to have some new friends when we finally go home. Anyway back to the tour, first stop was the
Locals
These people live on the reeds. immense landscape of the salt flats where we stopped for a photoshoot before heading off for the original salt hotel. Not only the first hotel to be made of salt in Bolivia but also home to the world´s most disgusting toilet! Next was Fish Island, a strange name as there were certainly no fish in the middle of this salt desert. Plenty of cactii though, making for an eirie place with spectacular photo opportunities. We had BBQ llama for lunch and then headed for our first night´s accommodation, also made of salt. The night (in fact both nights) past without incident thankfully as we had been warned about the freezing cold temperatures after dark. Day two saw an early start to a very long day. A few hours drive were certainly rewarded when we came to an amazing laguna filled with flamingos. This is what it was all about and one of the main reasons for taking the tour. They were incredibly beautiful and graceful and Em took hundreds of photos, some of which are spectacular, the girl has a gift! Later in the day we visited Laguna Colorado which is bright red and also flamingo filled. I know the
Reed between the lines
And this is what floats! list is getting longer and longer but this has to go down as a trip highlight, just an incredibly surreal place. Day three we were up at 4.30 to get to some geezers for sunrise. What an atmosphere in the freezing cold with the hot steam everywhere. Then it was on to some hot springs to watch some nutters strip down to their swimming stuff and try to warm up! A final stop at the Laguna Verde (Green Lake) and the tour had come to an end. We were really sad to say goodbye to Dan and Valentina as they were hillarious and more importantly thought Chris was funny! Still, we were heading to Chile, the place we´d been looking forward to the most for months. On top of which we still had our Ilkley mates with us.
San Pedro de Atacama was a bit of a shock to us on the wallet and full of tourists but we enjoyed a night there and loved the warmth of the sun after a few days in the freezing salt plains. Then a mammoth 17 hours on a bus to La Serena found us staying at Casa Gladys, a very family
run ´hotel´ where we just relaxed with our new friends walking around the town and a couple of trips to the sandy beach. We finally said goodbye to Paul and Philippa a couple of days ago in Vina del Mar, a lovely seaside resort a few hours north of Santiago. It´s always interesting to see the places the natives go to on holiday and Vina is definitely one of those. Chile in general is very western and nowhere near as culturally different as anywhere else we´ve visited in South or Central America.
Santiago, the capital of Chile, was beautiful and right near the top of our ´places we could live´ list. Beautiful old buildings, grand plazas alongside all the things you´d expect to find in a modern city make it an easy place to stay but we decided we'd better push on south and now we´re in a place called Valdivia (after another 12 hours on an overnight bus). Oh, one thing that did happen in Santiago...the sad departure of a faithful old friend. Em´s mum and dad gave/lent us a red daysack before we left for India in January. It´s been on it´s last legs for ages but
Reed boat!
What else would it be made of? Chris in particular has become very attached to it. It has holes everywhere and the zips are falling to peices so we finally binned it in a lovely 1 minute ceremony in the main plaza in the capital. Lovely photo of a very sad little man putting it lovingly in it´s final resting place.....bless him.
Right, you´re all up to date.....hope you´re all well and we miss everyone loads.
Love Em and Chris xxx
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