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26th December
I was somewhat sad to be leaving Cusco behind. The little city had been our starting point for The Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu and the gateway to our trip to the Amazon. There wasn't really any bad parts of our stay in Cusco. The romantic within me was about to be heavily dissapointed. We checked out of our hostel and the receptionist forgot to charge us for half of our stay, so things were still going great but just building towards a bigger down fall. Our taxi driver being as erretic as every other Peruvian driver, decided to try and get through a miniscule gap made by two other cars. The result was having to swerve into a pothole and his rear left tyre blowing out. We were only 50 yards away from the entrance to the bus station and he managed to make it on metal alone. Now we got to the bus terminal the real fun could begin.
The desk where we had purchased our ticket from was closed but shortly a guy who spoke no English came over. The Peruvian took us to another counter, the main counter of our bus company, where another man took one look at our ticket and shook his head, as did the first man. Bad, bad sign. It soon turned out that the agent who had sold us the tickets had just sold fake tickets even though the bus was full, just to make us buy something. The guy who had approached us spent the next 20 minutes frantically talking to other agents trying to find us a bus that would get us where we needed to be. We'd been scheduled to leave at 8am and I was in a very foul mood as the next few days were going to be really hectic. I knew most buses departed for Puno either at 8am or 10pm at night. An overnight bus or one the next day would really screw up the things we had planned. With about a minute to spare our Peruvian helper showed up and rushed us off to a bus along with another guy who'd fell for the scam. The bus was more than half of what we'd paid for the ticket and we saw nothing of an apology or refund, but I still thanked the man for his help.
My romantic view of Cusco was tainted but will no doubt be forgotten over time.
The bus to Puno, which sits on the banks of Lake Titicaca was fairly pleasant. No luxury bus but the scenery was nice. Again it was massively different to the rest of Peru. Vast empty plains that made me think back to my time in North Dakota and the problems I'd suffered there as well. That was my first experience with backpacking and it culminated in a 60hr bus ride to LA. The 8 hours to Puno would be a breeze compared to that. The bus rolled down into the valley surrounding Puno and gave us our first views of the lake. Vast is the only word that springs to mind. We found our hostel without event and gratefully dumped our bags and showered. Puno is much, much smaller than Cusco & somewhat of a relief. In Cusco you are verbally assaulted on every street with calls of 'macchu picchu trek, jungle trek' 'menu?' 'massage?' 'later? Tomorrow?' So Puno's laid back approach was a nice change. We strolled the plazas and little streets and found a nice restraunt with good variety. I tried Alpaca for the first time and was most impressed. Alpaca's are a shorter, fatter version of Lama's and very tasty!!
27th December
This backpacking lark isn't as easy as most people assume. We had to be up at 5:30am for our day on the biggest lake above 3000m on Planet Earth.
I'd say almost half our days in this first month we'd been up since before 7am. We waited in reception for our pickup and the staff were celebrating one of their members birthdays. This inoled pushing her face into the birthday cake and then cracking several eggs on her head and rubbing the yolk into her hair. Nice friends! All the time taking pictures whilst the poor girl seemed resoled to her fate! We were the first group to be picked up, meaning we were droe round & round Puno in circles till the whole group was essembled.
The harbour was a gorgeous little place packed full of almost identical boats all being loaded up with tourists. Our boat was the usual mix of backpackers & holidayers, spanish, australians and english. Most people spoke Spanish meaning the guide would go through great drawls of 'fluuby smur mur' before translating into a proper language.
We moved out onto the lake through masses of reed beds, surrounded by the sparkling blue water. The lake is home to 49 floating Islands, which belong to individual families that have been living this way for centuries. Each island varies in size, never more than about a 100ft wide at any angle and all varying in population. The first we visited housed about 15 people of all ages. The island leader showed us how the build the island out of different types of reeds for different layers, and then told us how they would anchor it wherever they pleased, picking their neighbours carefully. The reeds formed a massive part of their way of life & also can be eaten. The leader passed some out and I nibbled cautiously on one, unsuprised to find it was very watery and plain. After the show we were given half an hour to explore the tiny island. Far more than you need but they had plenty to try and flog you. Walking around on the island is a bit like walking on a mattress or a bouncy castle. Neither of us bought anything, if we weren't gonna have to carry it or so long maybe we would have.
Our guide, Juan, encouraged us to take a reed boat to the next island. The local people have no need for money (supposably), and just trade produce to get what they require, yet this 5 minute boat ride would set you back about 2.50 GBP. Nah thanks. Me and Jen declined the offer to contribute something new and shiny to the leaders hut, that had a big solar panel outside!
The next island was larger and even had it's own bar, culture untouched huh? Not much there, just women flogging the same stuff. Each island has a square gap in it where they farm their own fish. The second island had split their pond in two and had a 8ft square island floating on the water. Built on to the island where 2 small pyramid structures. Bored of women asking me to buy a poncho I walked closer for a better look. In the open side of one pyramid sat two very fat guniea pigs and one smaller one. I took a picture of the future dinner dishes and a woman sauntered over carrying a handful of reeds. She tossed the reeds on to the island and caused a frenzy amongst the 3 guniea pigs feasting on the new food. As they squeaked in delight she laughed and rubbed her belly. Not sure how I felt about that.
From here we took the boat two and a half hours onto the lake. Just vast blue in every direction, till it hit the sky and changed to a slightly different blue. We arried after our voyage to another island. This time a natural island, by the name of something that sounded like 'tequila' but probably wasn't. This island was inhabited by people who still lived the Inca beliefs. A great place with stunning views of the lake but their wasn't much else to tell. Very untouched by culture, except or the several tours that pass through each day!
It was a great day and I'd definitely go back. That night was our last in Peru and we would both be sad to leave it behind, we lived a bit more frivulous spending our last Peruvian soles and then packed up and got a early night.
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