Happy campers in Lake Titicaca

Well aint we happy campers......... and the reason why is that as per my sign off the last time the our tour of "the Lake" went very well. (ie we actually got what we were expecting). Before I ramble on for those with time check out http://www.titicaca.com/flash/ingles/ps2-in.htm (esp if u have sound, some great local music) Now back to our tour...........

DAY 1 (Monday)

Collected from our Inn in Puno about 7:45 and dropped to the port for our ferry. Ok so we spinned around the town a few times to pick up other folks but we ignored that! Onto the ferry with about 20 others and had a few words from our Guide (who spoke English, again another plus!)

First to be seen was the the Famous Uros Floating Islands. These were very strange and consisted of groups of Islands in the Puno Bay, normal enough you would think with houses etc until you jump off the boat and land on "reeds". Yes after some great words of wisdom from our guide we learned that these are actually floating islands built completely from reeds (continuously being "topped" up every week with fresh reeds). It was really interesting to see how the Islanders live, their island is made purely of floating reeds, and their housing of dried reeds. They survive by eating fish, birds and by eating the reeds on the Island. Supposidly the reeds taste like banana`s, don't really know if I agree with this, as I thought they were quite bland!!!

They feel perfectly solid under foot, but the bottom line is that they are floating (well are currently anchored in place) and can be moved with the help of a few big motor boats. Guess handy if they want a change of scenery!

Next we had another 3 hours back on the Lake, this time out of Puno Bay and heading for Isla Amanti, where we stayed overnight with a local family. We arrived around 2ish to be greeted by "local" with handshakes et. We were all divided up to stay in different houses and tucked into a home cooked lunch) of fab local veg soup, followed by rice, potatoes and a fried egg (strange eh!).

We all met up at 4 for a walk up to the local "hill" and the highlight had to having a beer at the top, not just any beer but the highest beer I ever drunk, yes there we were sipping away at 4050m! Sunset was a bit of a letdown, but had fun trying to find our way down. Being the last of the group to leave Ben and myself took a chance and followed a few "locals" down through fields etc in the home that they were heading to our village.

We were in luck and arrived home in time for Francisca (our Mama) to serve dinner. Soup again this time followed by rice and some sort of vegy stew. Did the spot and washed this down with the local "Manu Tea " (?) which tastes a little like mint and helps with Altitude sickness.

The night was ended when the family took us out to the towns fiesta for the evening where we dressed up in the traditional clothing and taught us traditional dancing. This was a bit of fun with the highlight being the fact that the family dressed us up in local clothes. The mens consisted of poncho and special beanie they had knitted for us, while the women's was a multi layer skirt, a traditional top and a special headdress. Confession time now, as I went for the female version (well wanted value for money and as you see the women get more clothes!

We bailed out of the party about 9:30 and headed back to the house. At this point must point out that the village has no electricity, so it was torches on. Sad story is that the place is all wired for electricity etc but they had to turn it off as its not economical to run the generator as too few people can afford to pay even the basic bill....... Had a nice few minutes star spotting (oh to have had Suzies "Star Book" before going into the bedroom and blowing out the candle (so romantic eh)

DAY 2 Tuesday
We all awoke about 5ish this morning, for a change it wasn't those damn dogs or cocks but some alarmclock in the empty room and yes empty room does mean that no one could turn it off so it roared every 15 mins for 2 hours till we had to get up for breakie. Breakie was a surprise as we were only expecting the old reliable Bread, butter and jam. Out Ricardo (the Daddy) popped with omelets (filled with the works inlc tomatoes, onions and chips!.

We were escorted back to the port by Sofia (last duty of the family), there it was interesting to see Moya rooting through the bin .........

Once every arrived we jumped on board bound for our 3rd island (Isla Taquile), on arrival at the port we hiked for about 45mins to reach the top of the island where we chilled out in the town square. Then it was "learning time" with the guide, most interesting is the very bizarre local "hat customs". On this island single men wear hats that are half white and when married they change these to full colour, other interesting things were their "dating ways" etc

Had a great dinner (which at 11:55 had to one of the earliest dinners I ever had, but at least it meant we had a "Full run at the day" as Pat Shortt would say..........) Damn fine feed again at the this local cooperative restaurant consisting of soup, fried trout with rice and chips and a cup of tea to wash it down!

After that it was back to Puno and start planning about how to get our of here, what about Bolivia tomorrow, era sure why not................. That's enough rambling, must be one of my longest so fit for the scratcher now.....

Totally not related but not to be missed................
was just listening to an Irish radio station and heard this classic song, It's an .mp3 download of The Jumbo Breakfast Roll a song that Pat Shortt sang on The Late Late Show recently. All you gotta do is click on http://spailpin.blogspot.com/2006/01/jumbo-breakfast-roll.html and you will find it!