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Hola chicos!
After 8 hours on the bus we arrived in Puno. As it was a Sunday not much was open but I had a walk around the town (not much here really), and had a nice cafe con leche with Sue and Colleen.
On Monday morning we had (another) early start as we were going to visit some islands on Lake Titicaca and to stay with a family overnight.
The lake is absolutely massive! We were on a boat for about 3 hours before we got off to have a wander around one of the islands and to go for lunch. Most of the people on the island still dress in traditional clothes which is cool. After lunch and being bombarded with kids asking us to buy bracelets we got back on the boat to head off to where we were staying that night.
When we reached the island a load locals were there to greet us. We were put with different families in groups of 2 and sent off with them to their homes. All the locals which took part in this tourism venture had especially large houses as they had to have extra rooms for us (when traditionally they would just have had a one roomed house which everyone would sleep in). The room which me and Katy stayed in was nice. The kitchen was in a small shed like buiding in the garden (as was the toilet).
After being equipt with wooly hats by Rose (the daughter of my host family) we went off to play football with the local kids. It was good fun - but running around at 4000m+ above sea level is hard work!! I was exhausted afterwards!!
After football we went back to the house for tea. This was when we gave the family the gifts we brought of food supplies. Tea was soup (nice) followed by a plate of 2 different kinds of potatos (not so nice). Its amazing how they cooked in this little shed - it was like cooking in a kitchen in England 100 years ago or more!!
All the time the mum cooked she had her baby son (Fernando - very cute) sitting on her lap. When we arrived at the house another toddler was there - a little girl called Lucy. She screamed when she saw us. I think she was particularily scared of me because when I stood up to get something she shreaked out!! Whoops!!
After tea we got dressed up in local costumes (very glam)! For girls this consited of an under skirt, a big skirt on top, an embroidered shirt and a head scarf. Under this I had my jeans, trainers, tshirt and jumper (it was freezing!!!). All in all we obviously looked frantastic - not! Anyway with us all dressed up we had a mini party with a pan pipe band playing music and us dancing with the locals. I tell you after football dancing was hard work - it really is difficult to breath here!! It was a nice experience.
This morning we got up early (again) to catch the boat back to Puno and to visit the reed islands en route. These islands are about 2m thick with reeds and then have little reed houses on them. Amazing!! Of course some of them are now very touristy, but it was still cool to walk on them and have a ride on a reed boat.
Now it is the afternoon and I think I am going to have a siesta. All this travelling is tiring!! Tommorrow we have an early start for a long bus journey to La Paz in Bolivia. This is where I say goodbye to some of the group, and hopefully meet some new group members (hopefully older people an non Brits as my current group is mostly made up of British students or new graduates - they are nice but it would be good to meet some people with a different background, as well as people who don't grumble everytime tipping is mentioned!!).
All the best,
Louise xxx.
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