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Leaving Cusco for the 3rd and final time was a rather early start but a few short hours later we arrived in Puno, a small town on the edge of Lake Titicaca. Having booked our Floating Islands tour and homestay we set about making the most of the tourist shops and bought every item of clothing in alpaca that we could find. We had been warned that the overnight stay on Lake Titicaca would be cold and we were taking no chances!
When we got onto the boat, Carrie commented that it looked like all of the seats had been ripped out of a minibus. Turns out that she wasn´t far wrong! In Peru, nobody can afford a marine engine so they all use car engines in their boats. Our little boy racer driver had gone a step further and got a car steering wheel and radio as well!
We drove through weeds for half an hour before reaching the islands, and they were crazy! We were greeted by the women that live on them and stepping off the boat onto the isand made your feet sink into the spongy reeds. We wandered around the very small island and were forced to try on local dress, an interesting few minutes! To get to the next island we travelled by reed boat which was originally being rowed by two of the islanders but then two of our group decided they would do a much better job. They did not! When we eventually reached the next island there was time for a quick beer before our journey to our homestay. During this time it emerged that Carrie thought we would be staying the night on a Floating Island. She was sadly disappointed when Laura informed her that this was not the case!
When we reached the island Almanti, we were passed over to our families. The lady that collected us, Elsa, was about the size of a 9 year old yet she had three very cute but very snotty children! We were pleasantly surprised by our living quarters, two proper wooden beds and lots of blankets! We then went downstairs and saw where the family lived. Two very muddy, very smelly rooms for the five of them. It didn´t seem quite right that we were living in relative luxury upstairs but we were assured that it was fine.
Our complete lack of Spanish was something of an obstacle when it came to communicating with the family but we got by with lots of nodding and smiling. Our meals were interesting and very carbohydrate based. We both had to force down the purple spiralled potatoes, they were a difficult one! That evening, a fiesta was put on in honour of the tourists so we put on all of our layers, our hats and our gloves and were about to escape out of the door when Elsa arrived with our traditional dress! We both put it on over everything else we had and although we looked ricidulous we were glad of the extra warmth. At the fiesta, Laura was pulled up to dance first whilst Carrie looked on and laughed. However, one very long song later and the roles were reversed!
After a marginally cold night of sleep we were warmed up by pancakes and Fanny marmalade for breakfast! It was then back to the port to meet our group and be waved off by our families to the next island we were to visit. We walked to the top of Taquile (Peru is full of mountains that we we had to climb!) and had a much needed lunch of trout and chips. Trout is on every menu in Peru! Our very steep climb back down the island signalled the end of our tour!
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