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Puno City
messing arounf at the theme park... Day 8:
After saying farewell to our families of the first homestay of this trip, we packed ourselves onto a private bus, for another mammouth road trip. After about 7 hours on the bus, most of it not sleeping as the road were in poor condition and it was pretty bumpy most of the way.... we arrive at Puno city around 4pm. check into hostel and there begins another ritual of wandering a new city, city square, markets to get bearings! Not much to report for day 8 except we had our cheapest meal to date, chicken ane veg soup, followed by small main and tea for a whopping 2.5 soles ($1 AUD roughly, .60pence GBP)... now thats cheap... on this budget, i could be here for a while!
Day 9:
Nice and early start, always the case these days, dont know what its like to have a ly in anymore! 😞 Breakfast consist always of tea and some bread of some sort with jam and butter and a juice.... these Peruvians definitely do continental style...
We hop onto a bike (well, we sit and someone else cycles) to the harbour, where we hop on aboard our
Bike ride to Harbour
well, we didnt ride, we were driven! mode of transportation for the next 2 days. First stop floating villiages on the Lake Titicaca, we just aboard some kind of structure made purely of the kind of weeds and plants that grow in the Lake itself. These floating islands last for about 25 years before it rots away. It was amazing to see how these people survive purely on fishing and weaving the island together. The even weaved a boat in which we took a boat ride on. Was absolutely amazing to see how simple some of these people lived and what little they have, how their lives are so simple, and was sad to see how little they had and how at times it could really b a struggle just to get by. What an eye openner!
After this trip we were taken to our second and final home stay. We arrive at a penninsula still within Puno bay, this is after 3 hours on the boat, be it the boat was not travelling very fast. Lake titicaca is thw worlds highest nativigatible lake (well, depends what you read), but its approx 4000 meters above sea level, about 165k length and 60k width... its pretty big,
Floating Island
demonstration of the construction of the island, in this case, housed 5 families. half belonged to Peru and half to Bolivia.
We arrive at home stay, meet our families, it this case Richard (father), Florintine (Mother) and Alexanders their 7 year old son. we were welcomed with a delicious lunch of soup and fish with rice and veges. and if we were expecting to take it easy, that was not an option. we were immediately taken out to the fields to dig for potatoes, not an easy task any other time, but at 4000m above sea, was back breaking work.
After which we were treated to a few games of volley ball with the locals, they off course kicked our asses, imagine, they do this at least twice a week with every new group and they grew up at this altitude. The "away" team put up a good fight none the less.
Next we adorned the local custumes, they have different ones depending on your martial situation, I, being unmarried had to don a bright hat to signal this status, so the local boys could check out what the "gringos" (their lingo for tourist) single market was like. we helped prepare supper and ate in the group, which was awesome....
Floating Island2
how simple their dweelings were, not eletricity, which meant going to bed at 4.30pm when the sunset. and what else to do when the sun has set and we´ve eaten, to bed off course! we had no idea what the time was until we crawled into bed and checked our watches, 8.15pm... we are really rocking it wild in Peru. Bedding was once again 4 blankets (which combined make up the weight of a concrete slab), but being smart this time round, i wore everything i brought with me and only had ocncrete slab up to above waist high.... that solved the sufficating in the middle of the night problem, but how about the "where the hell is the toilets again?" and "Fark, I´ve never felt this cold.. note to self "dehydration is not the enemy!""!!!!
Day 10:
Early wake up, simple local breakfast and we were once again saying goodbye to friends made not too long ago. We hop onto our fateful boat and head for the island of Taquile. we arrive at a quite and qaint island, although it was supposed to be one of the most touristy places in Puno. This was realised about an hour later when what seemed like hundreds of tourist start to hop off boats and onto our
Another Jont Venture
If the potatoe tasting and other ideas fell through... trek..
the trek was a short one, at times hard due to the steep nature of the path and the high altitude. we finsihed but walking 545 steps down to the harbour and board our boat and head back to Puno city, and transfer back to our hostel.
And after a pretty big lunch of grilled Trout from the LAke titicaca, i sit in the hotel reception catching up on my home work. My fingers are now slight numb due to the cold seeping in.... a group meeting in a hour then it will be a light supper and bed i suspect. We have a long way to travel tomorrow, 7 hours by bus to Cusco.... 3 days away from the Machu Picchu trek!!! Adois.
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Don
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Huh? Should be the other way round La!!!!!!!!!!!! There goes your chance of being a princess.......Bahahahahahaha