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Published: October 30th 2007
We arrived in Puno (Peru) on the afternoon of the Friday 26 October. The city itself is nothing special but merely a port to go island hoping. We had met an Irish couple on the bus and we decided to stay in the same hostel and go on a two day island hoping trip.
On Saturday morning our first stop was to the Island of Uros, an Island made totally from reeds. Although it was really touristy it was really interesting how about 5 families lived together on one reed island (there were about 40 different islands in total) and how they survive on the fat of the water and of course tourism. In one of the islands you could even stay overnight.
Our next stop after a 3 hr boat ride was the island of Amantani, where we were assigned a family, who we stayed with. The Irish couple and us stayed with the same family as we wanted to ensure that there was someone to speak to, as they did not speak English or Spanish on the island, but rather an old language.
The accommodation was really basic, the four of us shared one room, and we were also fed by the families and ate in what they called a ´´kitchen´¨ which was no more than a smoky room, where they actually prepared very tasty food. Our afternoon was spent hiking up to some inka ruins, which would have been lovely except that the wind picked up and it was really cold.
The evening was the highlight, as our adopted mother, dressed us up in traditional clothes and we all trekked to the local town hall and had a fiesta, with local music and learned how to dance the way the locals did. The following morning we were served pancakes and coffee for breakfast, which according to some of the other people who stayed at different families was an amazing breakfast!
We had another 1 hr trip to the island of Tanquile, which was not as pretty as the previous one, but still worth going to and seeing the people different traditions. We had lunch on the island and then had 540 steps to walk down to the boat which would take us back to Puno.
We got to the hostel, and this is where things went wrong. We all dumped our bags on the sofa, to go to the toilet etc and my big camera got nicked. Steve and I were distraught as it had two weeks worth of photos on it. We came to the conclusion it was definitely someone who came into the hostel and took it. We spent the following 3 hrs at the police station and tourist information getting a police report. To top off this we were faced with an overnight 10 hr bus journey to Cusco. We had booked our bus tickets well in advance but when we got to the station, they just shoved the 4 of us onto another bus and not the tourist bus that we had paid for. This would not have mattered so much, however an hour into the journey the bus stopped to collect some people and we were told we were in the wrong seats; we were but our actual seat numbers did not exist. After arguing for more than half an hr and standing our ground in limited Spanish and swearing in English, which did not really work, we did not move and the two people went to sit elsewhere. When they were unpacking the bottom of the bus, we noticed that a pig actually came out- that is Peru for you!
Our bus arrived in Cusco at 4am and we were lucky that our hostel gave us a room and let us sleep till 9am. Today we spent looking for a replacement camera, but no luck, the only one we could find was really expensive, but we do have a small one, so can still take photos. We are still not quiet over the loss of the camera, but really have to try and make the most of the rest of the trip as we were lucky that we were not hurt or anything and this type of things seems to happen to all travellers!
We are off to do a tour of the Sacred Valley tom and then 4 days on the Inca Trail!
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angela
non-member comment
Keep having fun
Hey there, awful having your camera stolen, with all those pics on it - but the places will have to live in your memory... think of it this way... your bags are lighter, and it's one less thing to carry? Its great to read about your adventures - the good and the bad! Keep it coming!