Blogs from Puno, Puno, Peru, South America - page 9

sooooooo...that is not quite the truth because, as always, I am a little bit behind with my blogs and so it was quite a few nights ago now. But what a day. It was amazing. We spent the day travelling on Lake Titicaca, which is absolutley stunning. This huge Lake looks like the sea because it is so vast and has green mountainous areas as backdrop. It was truly beautiful, albeit a little breezy. We still enjoyed some time on the top of the boat gazing out into the blueness. The origin of the name Titicaca is unknown. It has been translated as "Rock Puma ", allegedly because of its resemblence to the shape of a puma hunting a rabbit, combining words from the local languages Quechua and Aymara. We reached Taquille Island and had lunch ... read more

Feb 4th 2010 Puno, Inka Explorer tour to Puno The following morning we had a great breakfast in the Cross Keys pub where the baked beans are real, you don't come across that often here, It s a traditional English pub though somewhat quiet that may be because we always were there at odd times. I have made an observation here that I find amusing if not a wee bit revolting, Spitting, I think it might be a national pastime, Men Women and children participate with gusto, it is not socially unacceptable to cough up a lungful and launch in in any chosen directional regardless of any unfortunate who may be unlucky enough to be standing in its path, mind your boots I tell you. Puno has a festival which is one of the most popular ... read more

After a poor nights sleep in the cold and wet night on Amantani i was dissappointed to have silvia knock on our door for the wake up call. She did go some way to making it up to me by eplaining that breakfast was ready on the table. So with this information we rushed to get ready, when we got downstairs we had pancakes ready. I was really pleased and coincidently didnt care what hour it was or that i haven eaten meat in at least 2 days or so. After breakfast we headed down to the docks, we said our goodbyes and thankyous to Silvia. I gave her one of my jumpers as a thankyou. This is because the zip had broken though so i wanted to pick up a new one. After leaving Silvia ... read more

Lac Titicaca Hola! Nous avons brievement visite le lac Titicaca. C'est un endroit tres serein et reposant. On peut y rester longtemps pour pas cher. Tout d'abord, nous avons visite le cote peruvien les Iles Flotantes ou las Islas Uros. A environ 5km du bord du lac, il y a 60 petites iles habitees. En general, il y a 5 familles par ile, qui sont tous descendants de la culture Aymara (pre-Inca). Ils parlent l'aymara et un peu d'espagnol, et sont de plusieurs religions : catholiques, evangilistes, protestants, mormons. Ils contruisent leurs iles, leurs bateaux, leurs lits, leurs bancs, leurs tables et leurs maison a la main avec du totora (une espece de rameau ou d'herbe de lac...) qui est en passant mangeable. Visiter ses iles, c'est de voir la vie en paille ;p C'etait captivant ... read more

So I wrote my last entry not too long ago. In the last entry, I was heading to Copacabana the following day. I made sure on this holiday that everything was flexible as I wanted to be able to change plans at my will... and so I did. I write this blog as I too read the warning in Lonely Planet about night buses in Peru regularly going off the side of the road but payed it off as "it would never happened to me." So I want to reinforce the warning, and highlight the lack of help and care from local people on the side of the road (the locals at the hospital and airports were far more accomodating... thanks). It started out with a lot of talk about all border crossings to Bolivia being ... read more