Lets try this again.

South America
December 6th 2009

Published: December 6th 2009

Hey,

This post might make a little more sense now that I´ve gotten sleep, water, Tylenol, coffee, and a big greasy breakfast into me. I was definitely feeling a little rough when I got up at noon, much better now. So, as you all gathered from last nights entry, a bunch of us went on a pub crawl with our tour leader and his local friend. We all had a blast, danced the night away, and drank way too much. Brunos friend owns a bar, so we were getting lots of free drinks and deals. Was a good time.

Since my previous comprehensible post we´ve done a ton. We took a trip to a place called Condor Cross in the Colca Canyon and watched condors glide up through the canyon and we stopped and enjoyed a few hours in natural hot spring baths. From there we travelled to a town called Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Not really much to do in Puno, but it is a stop enroute to the islands of Amantini and Taquile, as well as the Uros floating islands.
We took a very nice boat ride to Isla Amantani and did some hiking there before having lunch at a restaurant on the top of a cliff overlooking the lake. Amazing view. We then got back into the boat for a short trip to Taquile Island. Our local guide gave us a Cechwa language cheat sheet and we practiced saying hello, thank you, etc. Hello= Allallyambambo or somthing like that. lol.
On the dock we were met by our ¨mamas¨ who took us in pairs to their homes. My ¨mamas¨house was made of large bricks and was actually nicer than I had imagined. Christian and I were shown our room, which was simple but with three nice beds with real mattresses and pillows. The bathroom was down a set of very steep concrete steps and across a little courtyard. It did have a real toilet, but as there was no running water we had to walk around the house to fill a bucket from the rain barrel in order to flush. Didn´t seem like a big deal initially, but at 2am was a little more of a challenge.
After a few minutes our mama came and gave us Alpaca wool toques and we followed her up a few trails to a little park. Our group all met up and we played a few games of volleyball with the local children and later some of the local adults. We first were playing against them, but later mixed up the teams. We all had an absolute blast despite the language barrier. I dón´t think anyone really knows who won any of the games, no one seemed to care about scores.
The sun starting to set we all followed our mamas back to our homes where we were to have dinner. I met our mamas mama who was preparing dinner and got us both coffees. We asked what we could do to help and were given a big bowl of potatoes to peel. Easy enough. Dinner was quite good... quinoa soup, rice, potatoes, and a salad with what seemed like cheese curds. After dinner we were both given colourful ponchos and mama got her party outfit on. We headed together to the town hall where a local band was setting up. Our group along with another group from a different tour company, as well as all our mamas, and tons of locals all showed up for the party. The traditional music started up and soon everyone was on their feet dancing the local dances and swinging all over the place. Was an absolutely amazing time and definitely one of the highlights so far. At ten thirty the party was over and we headed back home and crawled into our beds. I had an okay sleep.
Up at 7am (Megans birthday!) we had a pancake breakfast and coffee awaiting. Delicious. At 8am we got all our stuff together and followed mama back to the dock. We said goodbye and thank you in Cechwan and got onto our boat. All the mamas were lined up on the dock waiving as we sailed away. Such an amazing experience.
From Taquile Island we sailed to the Uros Floating Reed Islands. These islands are built out of local reeds piled up and actually float on Puno bay. They are anchored so they stay in place. Reed houses, reed boats, reed chairs. They even eat the reeds as well as use them to clean their teeth. The local women gave us a demonstration on the construction of an island. They take a year to build and last 20 years. So cool.
We took a ride on a reed boat to another island (there are 60 of them with 4 to 9 families per island, a population of 1300). We then boarded our own boat and had a picnic lunch on our way back to Puno.

The following day (yesterday) we took a public bus 7 hours to the city of Cuzco. Cuzco is the oldest continually inhabited city in South America. It was built by the Incan empire and Incan walls and temples can be found all over the place. Bruno took us on an hour tour of some of the highlights and stopped for a late lunch. At 6pm we met our Inca Trail guide in our hotel lobby. He gave us a briefing on how things would work, and what we needed to bring etc. So excited.
At 930 a group of us met in the lobby for a Saturday night on the town. Fun times.

Today we did a little more exploring as a group and then broke off to check out the city. We get our camping gear later this afternoon and have to pack our duffel bags for a 6am start to our day tomorrow. We will be on the Inca Trail tomorrow by noon. It will take us four days to travel the 42kms of the trail. Day one is supposed to be easy enough, day two we climb 1300m to 4200m above sea level and then back down. Day three is the longest day, travelling 16kms, and day four is a 4am start to arrive at Machu Picchu for around 9am where we will have a guided tour, free time, and later catch a bus, then a train to go back to Cuzco (we won´t arrive at our hotel until around 9pm). Should be an amazing and exhausting four days!

Thats all for now. I´ll send out an update when I get back from Machu Picchu.

Adam

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