Lake Titicaca - Its really high up!

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Sunday 31st of October, Cusco - Puno

We got picked up at our hotel again, not feeling very sad to leave this so called 3 star hotel behind. This time we were dropped off at a bus-station, and told to get on the Inka Express, direction Puno. The duration of the trip was 9 hours, and we were going to stop along several ruins and tourist places along the way.
The guide working on the bus was rather uninteresting, so the stops we made were not really much to keep my interest. The ancient temple of Wiracocha being the nicest of the sites. We also went up to 4300 meters, so a new record for me!
We had a nice self-serve lunch half way through the trip, and got chatting with and old couple from Australia. Nice people:)
Towards the end of the trip we drove through a city called Juliaca. Juliaca is the biggest city in the Puno province, but despite its nice name, its probably the ugliest city I have ever driven through. On top of that, there was some kind of demonstration going on, with people burning stuff in the streets. When the army and their tanks showed up, our bus driver decided that it was best to take a side road.....

Puno is a charming city on the edge of the famous Lake Titicaca, the world highest navigable lake. Its situated 3800 meters above sea level. The city is called the folklore capital of Peru, and with festivals and street parades happening every week, I guess it earned its name.
After watching different dance groups making their way through the main street for the festival of Delila or something, we went to a nice restaurant and tried eating Alpaca meat for the first time. The meat was incredibly tender and juicy, and is absolutely recommended!

Monday 1st of November, Lake Titicaca

We were picked up early and taken to the port where a boat awaited us and around 20 other people. The guide gave us the plan for the next two days, and we headed of for our first stop in the Titicaca lake, the Uros Islands. These islands are floating islands, built with balsa tree. There are 40 of them, most of them populated by small tribes living their daily lives on some floating wood. We were shown around of couple of islands, and took a balsa float, like the one Thor Heyerdahl used, between them. A nice place indeed.
Next up was 3.5 hours on the boat, which turned out to be a nightmare, because Brenda got seasick despite the calm water, and had to puke 4 times in the tiny, dirty bathroom of the boat. I could think of nicer ways to get the attention of everyone on the boat....
Finally we arrived at Amantile Island where we were staying the night. Our group was divided, and presented to a native which we were going to live with. The native women who came to greet us were all dressed in traditional costume, but didnt look particularly happy to see us.

I got Brenda to bed, and we finally got some lunch at our "homestay" at around 4. These house we stayed in had no electricity and no water, and the toilet was a hole dug out in the ground..... Its supposed to be a charming back to basics experience, but to us it was just too simple I guess.
Brenda decided to stay in bed while I joined the rest of our group for a tour of the island. I got talking with two German guys, and later also a swiss guy. They all seemed like nice people, so I went with them the rest of the day. On the way back, I also talked with two Swedish sisters, they were on a 7 month tour of South America, so we had plenty to talk about. When the sun went down on the island, there wasnt really much else to do than go to bed though.....

Tuesday 2nd of November, Lake Titicaca

We woke up with the sun at around 5 this morning, tried to get some more sleep, but the family rooster kept us awake together with the neighbours donkey. Brenda was ok again, so when breakfast was served at 7am sharp, we ate the potatoes and rice for the third meal in a row, and felt more than ready to leave the island. The weather was beatiful and the lake as calm as ever as we set out for Taquile Island, our only stop for the day. We walked around the island, a good excercise in the steep hills and warm sun. We had lunch, walked around some more, and went back to the boat. At this point my scalp was so sunburned I had to get out of the sun, but the rest of my body had luckily been soaked in sunblock, so it still felt ok.

On the boatride back to Puno, I talked continously with the two German guys, Sebastian and Christian. Living in Berlin, they shared my interest in electronic music, and we had plenty of other stuff to talk about too. On our return to Puno, we agreed to meet up later that night for dinner. The man from Switzerland, who had an interesting career as a geography teacher and weather man for several radio stations, also joined us. We went to a nice pizzeria, where we joked around some more until it was time to go back to the hotel.

Wednesday 3rd of November, Puno - Lima

Another day, another festival in Puno. We woke up to drums and music, so after breakfast we headed out to watch todays parade. There were lots of children from different schools dressed up in amazing costumes, dancing and singing. It was very nice to see them, all very happy, waiving to us and smiling. I guess an Asian girl with a blonde guy gets peoples attention in these places, so everybody wanted us to take pictures and wave at them. We went into a place to have lunch, and waited and waited for it. No lunch came, however, the waitress went out to buy fish, chicken and water, the three things we ordered...... After 45 minutes of waiting, we gave up and left.

At around 1, we were picked up at our hotel to go to the airport. In Peru, you have small buses going around every city. They are old Toyota HiAce cars, or similar models, with 10-12 seats packed inside. In the back door, a man is standing yelling out the vehicles destination, and urging people to get on. They are all over Peru, supercheap, really basic, and look rather dangerous. And now, for the first time, we were going in one. One hours uncomfortable ride followed, on roads full of potholes, and some without asfalt, and the tires had almost no air. On top of this, the driver drove as fast as the car would allow him at all times, creating several small situations. But we got to the airport alive!

We flew from Puno/Juliaca via Arrequipa (one extra landing, bleh), and back to Lima. There we were picked up at the airport by Victor, our travel agent, and taken to his hotel. We went out for some tacos, and watched a movie, before we called it a night.

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