My Dance with a President

---

After a breakfast of pancake and muña tea, our party set off for the harbour, where we were waved off by our island families. We sailed to the beautiful island of Taquile, distinct from the others, our guide informed us, by the richness of its agriculture, the use of Quechua (instead of Aymara) as the official language, and the extent of inbreeding. Walking to the island´s plaza de armas, I felt like I could have been on some lovely deserted island in the Med.
After a quick look round the artesan fair and photo exhibit, we treked up to our restaurant for lunch, where, for 12 soles we were served a delicious yellowy soup and a main course of trout, chips and rice, served with more muña tea. We then descended the 500-odd steps to the harbour on the other side of the island, passing by the locals who were carrying bags of up to 50kg (!) each on their backs, as the boats had just returned from Puno market, bringing much-needed supplies.
Instead of returning directly to Puno, as is the norm, our guide excitedly told us we were going to see a wedding on the floating islands. We all felt a little bit intrusive about the whole thing, but we arrived to find the entire island worryingly full of people dancing, eating, singing and playing games. Locals from other islands had sailed up and were watching the festivities from their sail-boats (reminding me strongly of the Trinity Ball fireworks in Cambridge). Our guide ushered us off the boat, and we stood on the sidelines watching the party. I even bought an icecream (neopolitain in a cone, with strawberry sauce and a wafer, for 1 sole, or about 20p). But before I´d had a chance to savour my purchase, one of the local man came up and asked me to dance. So, abandoning my ice-cream with some regret, I stamped and twirled my way round the island with this man, who introduced me to a group of the locals on our way. We then returned and I was reunited with my melting icecream, only to be told that the man I had danced with was the President of the island, who could trace his ancestry back to the last of the pure-blooded Uros people. I was then invited to join him in a beer-downing ceremony (how very traditional). Afterwards, I rejoined Ally and an American woman on our tour. At this point, another of the local men decided it would be entirely unforgivable if we left the island without sampling the local trout. We tried to explain that we´d just had trout for lunch and that really, our boat would be leaving any minute, but he was already half-way across the island putting in an order of 3 trout for us. We whittled him down to 1 trout between the three of us (mindful of the fact that Ally is a vegetarian and was psyching herself up to break her 15 year vow out of gratitude and a desire to avoid causing offence). So, the three of us sat on a log of reeds while we awaited our trout, careful to keep eyes straight ahead, as the area directly behind us appeared to be in use as a unisex, open-air public toilet. Thankfully Leo called us for the boat just before we would have taken our first mouthfuls of the food, so the woman transferred it onto a paper plate and we took it with us on the boat, sparing Ally her feared fate.

---

Comments

[Liam and Jenny]

WOW
Sorry but have not been keeping up till now !, you look as if you are having an amazing time but still have an eye for a good font for your dad. There might be a fault in your camera , the blue's are too blue and the smile are too big. Love Liam and Jenny

[Kate]

Thinking of you xx

[Michael]

Just sounds amazing! I'm not suprised the President asked you to dance. Although when I read it the first time, I thought he asked you to a 'beer drowning' competition - which I wasn't impressed with, sacrificing girls went out of fashion ages in the 1500s.