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Published: October 15th 2005
Sandwiches & snow balls
We leave Cusco and head up into the mountains. This is where we stopped for lunchSo what an amazing experience. Its true what they say about Lake Titicaca (or Titikaka if you are a local) truely amazing scenery and the blue sky reflects across the water with such a deep blue colour you could be in Greece.
The tuk tuk ride was too much for Alex as 10 minutes into the 4 hour boat ride she was being sick. Unfortunately she missed out on the 2 hour up hill walk on the Island of Taquille (which was meant to be a 40min flat walk!?) and the lunch cooked for us by the local Mayor!?
The men here have an interesting tradition of knitting their own hats and competition is rife to see who has the most stylish and elaborate.
We were given a sheet of helpful Quechua words that we had 10 mins to learn before we landed on the Amantani islands and met our new family for the night. Needless to say my first words after hello were do you speak Spanish - luckily they did! We then embarked on a 30 minute walk up a very steep hill to their house. The altitude was a nightmare which made it very difficult
Juliaca - a lovely place in Peru!!!??
One of Perus major cities, no roads, very poor housing and strange things going on on the side of the roads! to breathe.
We bonded with the local community by getting the guys to play football with the local team which helped us all to keep warm as it was freezing. Each one of the local families gave us a lovely woolen hat to wear, you´ll see the pics.
The strangest experience ever was dinner. Everyone was so friendly and interested to learn about us. It was very embarrassing with our pigeon Spanish but we managed to understand quite a bit. The mum & dad were 55, the son 25 and Nancy 18. The son sells t-shirts in Lima so has quite a bit of contact with gringos. The mother and daughter have never left the Island.
The pictures do not do it justice. The room was lit by only a candle and a small fire so it was exceptionally dark. Every time Alex was given a plate she would get out her torch and shine it at her food before she ate (not that it helped her as she ate the food and her sickness continued well into the night). For starters we had a potato and corn soup which was lovely and for main we had
potatoes with rice. Potatoes and rice are their staple diet as they are unable to grow much else on the Island.
It was a very humbling experience and I would be so embarrased if they came to my house. They live with the absolute minimum but seem very happy. Simple things seem to mean the earth. Nancy had a mosquito bite so I gave her my bite cream and her and her brother were happy. They don´t have cream of any kind on the island. We were not allowed to give them money so instead we took them a food gift but its not until you are there that you can appreciate what would really be useful.
After dinner Nancy dressed us up in the local costumes and took us to the local hall to meet the others and learn their traditional dance. Alex was overwhelmed by all the excitement and left early still not feeling well (altitude and stomach bug).....The family were lovely and put her to bed with a hot water bottle (an old coke bottle) and a cup of coco tea. The next morning the dad told Alex off for drinking too much cold beer
and making herself sick!!!??
We said goodbye to the family and Nancy took us and our belongings down to the boat we said farewall and it was all over...though it did seem as though we were there a lot longer than 1 night.
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