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Published: September 6th 2005
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Had a good trip from Cusco over to Puno which is on Lake Titicaca. I took the tourist bus that stops at various sites including more Inca and pre-Inca ruins. On the Tuesday I headed out on the Lake to visit the slightly touristy Uros Islands. They are amazing and are doing well to maintain their way of life on the islands. They are made of reeds that are continually harvested and placed on top to maintain the depth whilst the ones at the bottom rot away. They rise and fall with the waves from the passing boats and the surface is very spongy. To keep up with modern times they use solar power to provide power for lighting and they also farm fish via a hole in the middle of the island and a fine net. The local fish is quite small and I think they farm larger varieties such as trout. One of the islands holds the primary school which is a more conventional floating pontoon and another even has a pay-phone! We took a ride in one of their reed boats and tried some of the reed which is a bit like celery.
After that it was
a long boat ride to Amantani Island which is the more conventional earth and rock type. It's weird to see all of the Eucalyptus growing here - again introduced from Australia. We were put up with local residents and they provide lunch, dinner, breakfast and a real feel for life for the locals. I must say it really makes you appreciate home as they live in very basic conditions. Again some of the houses have solar power but others just use candles. The kitchen had a dirt floor and that is also where they keep their Guinea Pigs! Not that we got to eat them. I think they were saved for special occasions. We were kept to soups, local vegies and cheese. We also got to see what the kids do at school via inspection of their class books. The small mud-brick house was home for about 10 people over three generations but I didn't get a chance to meet them all. Most of the household spoke at least a little Spanish although this is not their native language. Having a conversation was quite difficult although there were some Spanish speaking people staying there also that could interpret some of
One weird animal
This thing even spat on me when I was trying to get a photo with it the conversations.
At sunset we walked up to the top of the hill and at some 4100 metres above sea-level it was pretty hard going (the lake is about 3800 metres ASL). Unfortunately the weather this time of the year is 100% blue sky and so there were no clouds to provide anything spectacular as far as sunsets go.
They also arranged a fiesta for us that night with a local band playing some traditional music and the local woman to drag us onto the dance floor. Of course we had to get dressed up in the traditional evening-wear which for me consisted of a army grey blanket puncho and a colourful beenie. The girls wore colourful dresses and head-wear. I'm not sure if the dances were traditional as it mostly consisted of running around in a circle and then a figure eight but it was good for a laugh and not too hard to pick up the steps.
On Thursday it was off to Taquile Island which is another normal island where we learnt more about their local traditions and then back to Puno after a 3 hour boat ride.
That night was a shocker.
I don´t think the gritty pancakes we had for breakfast agreed with me and all night I was throwing up at both ends! I was concerned about the bus trip back the next day to Cusco as whenever I took some Immodium, I´d throw up. As it turned out I just managed to get back to Cusco without any major warddrobe damage.
That night I ran into the two lovely American girls that I´d kept running into in Pisac and Cusco. OK it wasn´t all coincidental as I kept staying in the accommodation that they had recommended but it was a bit freaky when it turned out that they were on the same flight as me back to Lima! They had been off on the trek whilst I had been to Puno and had really enjoyed it. To date it is my only regret as it sounds like a fun thing to do and a great way to meet some people. The girls invited me to meet up with them and their trek group later on that night but with my stomach still giving me grief I went and saw an hour of traditional dancing that was part of
my tourist ticket and then had an early night.
Reached Lima and spent a good amount of time in the airport due to my flight to Brazil being delayed for a couple of hours. I´m flying Varig now and they are the only airline I know where you have to fill out a next of kin card before you checkin!! I hope they don´t have too much use for that. It took ages to get through checkin but they did give me a free lunch due to the delayed flight which was nice of them. Then I couldn´t find me exit card and so it cost me $5 for them to spend 20 secs and write another one out. They have a cool bar there where you get free internet access as long as you buy something to drink.
So that´s it from Peru! Next stop is Rio which should be a very different kind of place and a few late nights are expected.
Chow for now.
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