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Published: March 4th 2006
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Cuzco had been great, and we'd really enjoyed visiting the ancient sites of the Incas, but after over a week in the most touristy part of Peru we were happy to get out. We'd decided to take the train to Puno on the basis that... erm..... well, it wasn't a bus. The view was supposed to be quite spectacular, but I must confess that the main reason I wanted to go on the train was that I was bored of busses.
The format of the train was such that we were sat opposite a nice American couple, Jeff and Darcy, who we spent hours chatting to on our way there. The train took no less than 4 hours more than the bus (!!) but fortunately the views were as stunning as we'd been promised, justifying the extra time (and expense - it's also twice as costly as the bus!). On the way into Puno we were greeted by a beautiful sunset - I've never wanted a train to stop so much, couldn't take a decent photo with it moving! - and saw Lake Titicaca for the first time.
For those that haven't heard of the lake, it's the "highest
navigable lake in the world". What this means exactly I'm not sure, other than it's a lake, and it's higher than the other navigable ones. Answers on a postcard please. Puno, situated on the shore of the lake, is very high at some 3810m above sea level. This means that running around is a very tiring prospect; lucky then that neither Em nor I were inclined to do so.....
Puno sits on the shore of the lake, in a very picturesque setting, despite being constructed almost entirely of unplastered brick. We stayed there for a night and were soon planning our next step, a visit to the Peruvian islands within the lake, which itself is so huge that you can't help but keep forgetting it's a lake and thinking it's actually the sea. We'd met back up with Ruth & Jono, and Rein & Char, so the six of us booked a tour of the islands for the following day. That night though we went out in search of the carvival; by conincidence it was the time of the festival of the devil, with big street processions and dischordant marching bands. Little did we know that later that night
we'd be dragged into the procession by a worse-for-wear Bolivian immigration policeman and end up touring half of town dancing with them, before having the finer architecural points of a stone arch described to us in mind-numbing detail...... "It's an arch, for our independence. Look how strong it is!" etc. etc. etc. That immigration fella was pretty out there!
The floating islands of Uros were the first stop, and as touristy as they are, I don't think you'll ever see anything like them anywhere else in the world. The islanders at some point decided that they'd had enough of living on land, and so constructed islands out of the reeds that grow on the lake, and made reed houses on them. The islands are moored although they can be joined together or in fact moved around the lake dependent on relations with other nearby islanders. These days, the islands receive numerous curious visitors each day, and spend much of their time making handicrafts to sell to the tourists. It was a strange place to visit, but fascinating, and we easily overlooked the touristy nature of the visit.
After the floating islands we steamed (which I think perhaps is
Mama cooks some tasty grub
The kitchen might look a bit rustic but the food was delicious... the wrong word - "plodded" or "crawled" would be more appropriate) to the island of Amantani, a more conventional place where rock and earth rather than reeds passed underfoot. When we arrived at the island we were united with our "family" - there are no hotels on the island, visitors stay with local families - and started the walk to our family's house, which happened to be the highest on the island. Oh well.......
Both Em and I were somewhat dubious about staying on the island. Not because we didn't want to stay with a local family - we were quite looking forward to that - but because they had a prepensity to dress visitors up in local gear and get them to dancy like monkeys. OK maybe I made the "like monkeys" bit up, but they do make them dance, and I do dance like a monkey. Lucky for us, whilst we were made to dance (at this point I'm unwilling to say whether or not I looked like a monkey - I fear that perhaps I did), the whole experience was way more fun and way less embarassing than we thought it would be. Much fun was
Me showing everyone how it's done
Honest guv. Dancing in the local style apparently is a bit different than house music... had by all, even the local girls, who I would've thought were sick of the whole thing after a couple of times.
The next day, very very early, after leaving a few gifts, we left our foster family and headed back to the boat for the final island on the tour, Taquile. On this island, again the more conventional type made of rock, the quirk is that the men are all avid knitters. Those boys knit all sorts of things; hats, scarves, you name it. It's said, in fact, that if you don't knit, you're not a man. That'll be a babycham for me then, please...!
After walking around the islands it was good to get back on the boat, and some (long) amount of time later we were near Puno. The weather had changed on the way from sunny and warm to windy, cloudy and cold - we even saw a few flakes of snow as we got into port - so were glad to be back in our hotel room despite the lack of heating. There were only a couple of sites left to visit in Puno, which we did the following day.
I can't
tell you much about the funerary towers at Sillustani, partly as we didn't get a guide, and partly because I don't trust what they say anyway. Essentially they are pre-Inca, although confusingly there were also some post-Inca examples at the site, and were used to bury the remains of powerful members of the society of the day. There were even little holes in the bottom of the towers so you could see the mummies in their houses, which were apparently guarded 24/7 to stop animals or grave robbers from getting a piece of the action, so to speak.
Last and by no means least was our visit to the fertility temple at Chucuito, another marvelous and inexplicable site. In this place, the name of the game was building massively out-of scale stone phalli (that's the plural of penis in Latin for those who didn't know!) which were worshipped in order to..... erm...... well not sure really. I don't think though, on balance, that they intended them for what I did with them. Ho hum....
After all that we were ready to leave. A visit to the bus offices later and we were all set. The plan was to
head to Bolivia, and straight to the biggest city, La Paz. We had decided not to stop in Copacabana (do you reckon that old Baz Manilowe had Bolivia in mind? I think not...) as although it looked nice, we were a bit short of time, and reasoned that it was better to press on. A new country, new city, and lots of cool stuff to see. What fun.......
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JGirl
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Bungholio
hey guys! You did stay with the same family-i recognise them! fancy that eh? is the piccie of your dinner with the animal nose an optical illusion? or did it belong to the guinea pig? did it taste like chicken? we didnt get involved.... loving Gruff!