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Dear all,
I have arrived safely back in Calca but will write about my time in Puno and Lake Titicaca in this entry.
We departed Cusco on saturday morning at a nice and early time of 5.30 - because some of us had gone out the night before it was a bit difficult to wake up. Nevertheless we all made it close enough to on time to the Plaza and caught a taxi to the bus station. Half an hour later we were finally on our way to Lake Titicaca - the highest navigatable lake in the world. A normal bus trip to Puno from Cusco is supposed to take 6-7 hours, however because we were on a tourist bus we stopped 5 times along the way for lunch and various ruins making the trip 9-10 hours. Although a lot of people were tired an hungover all the ruins were worthwhile (ill attach some photos) and we arrived in Puno around 3pm. Saturday night we spent in Puno and we also lucky enough to be staying in an awesome hotel with TV, comfotable beds, very hot showers and a nice buffet breakfast the next morning. That night we also had dinner included so went to ´Macchu Pizza´ for dinner - funnily enough in Peru half the businesses have ´Macchu´ or ´Llama´ in their names.
Anway, after breakfast the next morning we caught a bus down to the edge of the lake and bought some goodies - sugar, rice, etc etc for the famalies that we would be spending the night with on lake titicaca. We then boarded our boats and 45 mins later arrived at the Uros floating islands. As you will see in the photos I attach it is absoltely amazing how they build these islands and also that they are able to live on them. When they need supplies they go into Puno and barter or use the money they get from tourists to pay for things. In some of the small huts the people live in they even have TV´s and solar power so obviously the technology on the islands has come a long way mainly because of tourism. After roughly 2 hours visiting 2 of these floating islands we were off again on a 3 hour boat ride to the island where we would be sleeping that night.
After arriving at the island we were met at the docks by our host mothers and then had an hour walk up about 400m to the community where we were all being hosted. We were then taken to our houses and lunch was served soon after. Luckily enough my house was right next to the soccer field where we were all to meet 2 hours later which meant not much walking was involved for me. After playing some soccer against locals and other tourists we walked up to the very top of the island (roughly 4200m m.a.s.l) for sunset over the lake - very beautiful.
After returning to our houses we had dinner and were then dresses up in beanies and ponchos for the party that was going on that night (see attached photos). Although I didnt spend all that long at the party, it was fun and interesting while I was there. The next morning we had another hour boat ride to a nearby island where we did some walking and then had lunch at a restaurant with awesome views over the lake. I had fresh Trout ´trucha´ and it was probably the best trout I have had in my life. After lunch we were back on the boat for another 3 hour ride to Puno. From Puno some of the group went back to Cusco and the others departed in Taxis to the Bolivia - Peru border and then to Bolivia for a further 7 days - this I will write about tomorrow.
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