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Published: June 11th 2009
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18th April 2009 It was time to move on and so the next port of call was Puno, on the shores of the highest navigatable lake in the world. We ended up leaving late from Arequipa as some crazy Australian woman wouldn't stop talking about alternative medicine. The bus journey was long and relatively uneventful until we made a "banos" stop (toilet stop). Eager to go we got up but realised that by stop they meant pissing just under the window of the bus - not just the men but the women too. We sat back down and closed the curtains, not wanting to expose ourselves to 50 odd Peruvians. We arrived in the dark and made our way to our hostel. This seemed to be in the backend of beyond, and on the highest point in Puno. Surprisingly it was only a 10min walk into the centre of Puno but 20min back because of the "attitude" (we assume they meant altitude.)
19th April 2009 Alex decided to watch the Grand Prix in the early hours of the morning so this was a good excuse to have a bit of lie-in. We spent the rest of
the day exploring Puno and for the first time in South America we were cold in the middle of the day. We looked into booking an "Island-Hopping tour" on Lake Titicaca and the usual Peruvian sales pitch of "good price". We ended up booking a tour through our hostel after bargaining the lady down for a "special price". Strangely in Puno and in fact the whole of Peru is the amount of unfinished houses. This isn't because the Peruvians can't afford roofs, they are just smart enough to find a Loophole in the council tax laws that state that any unfinished house doesn't have to pay council tax. Instead they all have nice sun terraces to dry their clothes on.
20th April 2009 An early bus ride took us around the narrow streets of Puno, picking up everyone on the tour and taking us to the port. We were introduced to our guide and captain and then it was on to the floating Uros Islands. These islands quite literally float on the lake, made out of layers of reeds. The lakes are movable, so if the inhabitant don't like their neighbours they just take up anchor and
float further away! On each island there are approximately 5 houses of friends and family members. Surprisingly they have electricity and internet (we're not quite sure how though!?). The next island we visited was Amanati, a normal rock island, where we would be staying the night with a Quechua family. After being introduced to Nicolas and Sebastian, our hosts, they showed us our room and served us a lunch, all cooked on a small open stove. This was quinoa soup followed by cheese on various varieties of potato, basic but tasty. Whilst we were eating, in true Peruvian style the family unloaded their bungle of home knitted crap, and despite the language barrier we knew where this was going, so we bought a condor finger puppet, quality! After lunch we climbed to the top of the island to watch the sunset at the pre-Inca ruins. Hungry from our climb we ate dinner, rice and veg with more soup to start. Then fiesta time! We were dressed in the traditional clothes of the islanders and danced to the pan pipe music round and round. After a busy day we slept very well on our straw mattresses!
21th April 2009 The second day began with rough waters, unexpectedly for a lake. Alex stayed on the top of the boat to recover while Elaine stayed warm inside. The next island, Taquille, like Amanati was a fixed rock island but the inhabitants had very different traditions. For example the men all wore hats, and depending on the type and angle of the hat, it stated whether the man was single, engaged or married. The pattern on the hat also determined how important they were in Island society. The three rules of the Island were No stealing, work hard and don't be lazy. This seemed to work well and everyone shared in the money brought in by the tourists. We got dropped of at one end of the Island and walked to the centre to have lunch - a very nice meal of trout and chips. We got picked up at the other side of the Island but unfortunately a dozy lady had stayed where we got dropped off so we had to pick her up on they way back - what she was doing is a mystery.
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