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Max & Dean Year Out 05/06
Hey everyone, hope you're all keeping well. Dean here by the way, the lazy git who usually leaves these postcards to Max!
Rolled into Cusco yesterday after a 6 hour bus ride from Puno....gotta love those long bus rides!!
Our trip out onto Lake Titicaca was absolutely wonderful. First we went to the floating Islands of Uros, a collection of 40 villages housed on top of floating reed beds. There we met some of the inhabitants and found out about their unique lifestyle from our lovely guide, including the plan to avoid annoying neighbours. Simply up anchor and float your island away a couple of hundred metres...brilliant!!
During another of his insights into the "ancient culture" of these Quechua people, he was rudely interupted by the sound of a funky mobile phone ring tone. After a few of our fellow travellers had checked their phones we realised that one of the villagers was picking up a call, looking a little embarassed.....ancient culture eh?
We visited another of these floating islands before heading off to the Island of Amantani, our home for the night. There we were met by the islanders who would be allowing us to stay with their families for the night. Our host, Celia, took us up what felt like a never ending hill(Peru does hills like nowhere else on earth!) to her home where we met the rest of the family and were shown our room. Such a tiny little place but very charmimg. They really didn't have much in the way of posessions but gave us all they could in the way of food and comfort. There we had a traditional lunch before climbing yet another monster hill to take part in a game of football. Playing at around 4000m above sea level was a painful experience but good fun. Maybe that's why PeterCrouch is so cr@p, problems with altitude?
As the afternoon drew to a close we trecked up...yep you guessed it...another steep hill, to the top of the island to see ancient Quechua ruins and watch the sun go down over Lake Titicaca, beautiful.
The evening consisted of another great meal with our family before we were dressed up in traditional Island clothes for the evenings fiesta(great?). I along with the rest of the guys had it easy as you may have seen from the the most recent pics we've put on this site, our costume consisting of the typical Peruvian hat and a poncho. I looked stupid but at least it only took 5 seconds to put on. The women however had to put on around half a dozen items which Max was less than pleased with, especially as the dreaded Mal De Altura had struck again and she was feeling pretty rough.
Fiesta was pretty cool, lots of embarassing dancing with our respective hosts and a well earned beer.
After a pretty cold night we had breakfast, took some more photos of our adopted family, thanked them and got back on our boat to head to the island of Taquile where we enjoyed the carnival of the Fiesta of St. James, great dancers and beautiful costumes.
Lake Titicaca has been one the highlights of our trip in SA, an amazing part of the world that seems so cut off from the rest of the world.....unless you have a mobile phone on your floating island of course!!
As I said, in Cusco now, ready for our trip to Machu Pichu tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy the site without TOO many other tourists there. Will obviously let you know how it turns out.
Well adios mi amigos.............will update soon.
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