BACK HOME TO LIMA!

Lima, Peru


The flight to Lima was without any problems at all...

In fact it´s nice to be back ´home´!

That´s how it felt anyway, like we were coming back home again. Seems silly really, to think that when we return to a place, it´s liké we´re going back home....

But this is our base..and this is not the last time we return here either!

We felt like we knew it all when we arrived this evening...because we landed, headed confidently and knowingly out to the luggage disposal area, collected our baggage..and bypassed the Green Taxi´s knowing that there was no way we were going to pay 40 soles for a taxi when we could pay 20! We learnt that one last time!

Taxi´s drivers in airports don´t seem to want to bother with people that don´t have that label written on their foreheads ¨I´m new here!¨ so we headed out to the street, away from the airport, and had plenty of drivers wanting to offer us their services...when we heard a driver say 25 we said, ´ce´and he pushed our trolley towards his car and we were off!

No trying to sell us anything, no conversation, just driving. IT was peaceful ... and he took the coastal road back to our hotel in Miraflores as well, which was even nicer.

We tipped him and watched his great big grin..and got into our comfortable room and now that´s where we are..here in Lima...and home again!

It did seem to be a generous couple of days. With Jose yesterday, Percy today (totalling a tip of about US$5 each per day) and then the taxi driver!

We decided we needed to calm down...realising we still have another 3 months before we come home is a bit of a reality check in the budget department!

Dinner at our ´fav´ restaurant (yummy pickled onion) took the brunt of our renewed decision to do the ´peruvian thing´ and that is....not to tip! Not Hugely anyway!

We´ve been doing the North American thing..and tipping from 15 - 20% because it´s just so cheap to eat out...on average we´ve been spending about 30 soles and that´s for the two of us. (about $10!) Custom tip according to the Lonely PLanet Guide, here is 8% - 10% for tourists. Tonight we tipped 5%!

But we found out locals dont bother to tip in restaurants. They say that it is not customary at all. And we found out on our tour. The guides all said in Peru, they do not tip!

Anyway, here we are..back home...just for a couple of days.

Next stop. Galagagas.

But before we do that..i´m going to spend a bit of time writing up the TREK blog.

Oh where, oh where, do i start....

I guess in the beginning!

HEADING BACK TO PUNO!

Day 270

Puno, Peru

Sunrise escaped us................................

After having an early night last night on Tequile Island we STILL ended up missing the sunrise which was meant to be about four or five am. This is when the Tequile people get up and about..to the sunrise...and they are meant to be quite spectacular on this island....

It was so SILENT it´s no wonder we slept on...the nights are silent, the mornings are silent...the whole island is silent. We felt if we farted it would create a stir!

It was around 6am when we finally arose..after a really chilly 6 blanket night in a single bed. No morning shower as it was cold (freezing to be honest!) and the sound of Percy´s boots on the pavement indicated it was breakfast time!

The Alexander Flowers ¨homestay restaurant´ was tended to by his son and breakfast was a fluffy pancake and jam and their local bread..which was a flour doggh that was fried on a gas stove. Because there is no elecricity everything is either solar pannelled (which didn´t work either, hence the candles over dinner last nght) or by gas. They used gas to fry the bread. Then came eggs..

Do they ever stop eating? It´s healthy..but geepers, i can´t keep up the pace that´s for sure. One dish is surely enough? I asked how they all kept so skinny - unlike on Uros Is where the women lack exercise due to being on such a tiny island, the women here are skinny..as are the men.

Of course the logical answer was that they don´t have vehicles (which is why it is so quiet!) and everything is done manually...collecting water, tending their animals, agriculture and just daily living.

People on this island have never even heard of TV! Some have, when their son´s go to Lima to work..but mostly...they are immune to the technolocial advances of the rest of the world.

What a great way to live eh?

Even tourism here is limited. After breakfast we chucked on our little front packs (we left our big packs back at the hotel in Puno) and trekked our way back to the Main Square to see if there were any textile for sale. That was afrer we saw a demonstration of weaving, knitting (by one of the men) and spinning by Alexander Flowers himself. It is something they all do...as if the cone shaped hand spinning device was attached to them at all times!














On the way back we saw teenagers heading out to the field with their axe shaped agricultural devices slung over their backs (the girls still in their heavy, layered and colourful skirts) and men getting ready to improve the roads by carrying cement equipment and buckets..and children walking down the path.

I saw three children walking by..the little boy of about 4 ahead..and a girl of about 7 carrying a baby of about 2. That is the way of it...the elder girls look after the babies. We saw it a lot. The women are rounding up alpaca´s and the elder girls and tending to the babies. I took a photo of the kids..and they skiddadled after filling their little outstreched hands with the gift of soles. (They always know how to put out their hand for a coin when tourist want photos!!!)

Unfortunately the Market Square was not yet set up with the textiles...only the movement of little boys playing soccer seemed visible.

It must be the off tourist season. Perhaps because it is rainy season now..from Oct till March.

It was time to get back on our ramshackle boat to head back on our 3 hour trip to Puno anyway..so we climbed the 500 steps back to the port and got ready for our history lesson of Lake Titicaca from Percy.

Thank god the boat did make it (on 3 of 4 cylinders) back to Port Puno...

Jose had kindly arranged for us to have a shower back at the hotel where we´d left our luggage which was not a blessing in disguise as it was FREEZING....but refreshing. Honestly...i don´t think i have had so many cold showers as we have had here in South America!!!!

By 2pm we were ready to head back to Juliaca in a private vehicle, guided by Percy in readiness for our flight to Lima.

And that´s where we are now...BACK IN LIMA!

OVERNIGHT TEQUILE ISLAND STAY

Day 269

Tequile Island, Puno, Peru

Tequile Island is really unique. And about an hour further than Uros....on the way we got peckish and decided to devour some of our remaining snack pack that we were given for the Machupicchu trek (which we later regretted)...

We listened to Percy give us an outline of the island as we slowly steamed to the port. About 2000 people that live on the island. It is an island of rules that is governed by very proud people. It´s named after the Spanish conqueror Pedro Gonzales de Tequile. It has a colourful history..apparently no crime and it even had a few political prisoners. One, Sanchez Cero, who stayed there for 20 years and later became the president of Peru!

From a distance we could see the little port where we were to moor our boat and we could see Percy felt very comfortable on this island. We were learning more about him as the day progressed. He had a great interest in archaeology and had an intense knowledge of the local islands...which there were about 4000.

He said his language was Aymara, a language that preceded the Inca´s, who spoke Quechna. His language is a very old island language. He seemed very excited to arrive here. As we walked he told us he had land also, and he had lots of alpaca´s and llama´s that he farmed. His land was called Pasiri.

Soon our conversation became strained as we climbed the mountain to our homestay...there were hundreds of steps to get there! On the way we saw children dressed in their traditional dress..the girls in wide skirts with layers and pompoms and boys in little alpaca jumpers with knitted pants. All warm clothes even though it was a warm day! One little boy came to meet us on the path saying, ¨bon bon whiski´which means...´do you have candy?!¨

Alexander Flowers met us, dressed in his ´costume´ of colourful traditional dress and ushered us into his ´house´ which is really a restaurant, but since the island does not allow restaurant they call it a ´house´. The room had a complete view of the still grey water, that reflected the sun, and as we sat on the wooden benches we were served kuinua soup and inca cola....then came the next course of chicken and potatos...then munya tea!

I felt so full..but Percy had a ´tour´ in mind. He allowed us an hour to rest before we were to climb to the top of the mountain to see where the sacred sites were!

And talk bout rest. I felt fast asleep on the 6 layers of alpaca rugs in the room that was prepared for us before Percy was beckoning for us to go on our hike!

500 more rock steps later we were at the top of the mountain, at an altitude of 4120m. Thank goodness we were drinking munya tea...apparently it helps with the adjustment to altitude. We weren´t affected by it though, having gotten used to it on the Trek! We did have breathy gasps though..it felt like we were back on the Trek all over again!

The top of the mountain had the most spectacular view! We could see all around..at the lake..and all the terraced plots of land..the children tending to the alpaca´s..the corn and potatoes in the field and of the religious sites at the top.

They were divided into two sections...one for Mother Earth and one for Catholics. The section where they worship Mother Earth, and Pachamama, had burnt rocks and sacrifices. The catholic section had a huge cross!

We stayed up there for a couple of hours...and then trekked back down the mountain and crossed the Main Square where we saw people locking up their shops. The main street had ´restaurants´ but they again, looked like homes. The women of the island were shrouded in black capes and colourful skirts. Percy said they were very shy here.

It was unlike URos where tourism was rampant. We only saw two other tourists during this whole time.

It was so peaceful..

We arrived back at Alexander FLowers at about 6.30pm and had half an hour before dinner.

Dinner?

By the time we headed back to our room we had our head lamps on as there is no electricity on this island. No water either. Well, there is water, but it is loaded up in buckets and taken to the houses by hand each morning at sunrise. No rest for the wicked here!

As a political gesture the island was given a water pump with a water hose running down to the lake..but it worked for a week..and that was that. It never worked again! There were cisterns dotted around the island too..but they never worked either. It seems no technology ever became successful on the island..and whether this was on purpose, or whether it was not, who knows.

The fact is..the island was living to it´s traditional and longstanding rules..and it is functioning beautuifully!

Dinner was soup again..vegetable..and the main dinner was spaghetti bolognaise with no meat which suited me fine! They are vegetarians..and i´m pretty sure after looking at the chook pen, that had no chooks in it, that we ate the very last chook on the island!!!!! Because the only animals we could see were cows (underfed ones because there is a lack of grass on the island) llama´s and alpaca´s!

Didn´t see any guinea pigs that they were meant to be famous for....hhmm..

Percy was going to do a presentation for us at night..but the island was so quiet..and dark (two lit candles at dinner!) that we all decided just to go to bed...

IT was 8.30pm!

UROS IS

Day 268

Lake Titicaca

Breakfast is so yummy at this hotel! Casa Andina. Displayed on the plates were alpaca, fruit of every description and an assortment of peruvian breads, which are the flatbread variety. At last we could eat and not worry about altitude! It was still pretty high here, around 3827 metres above sea level, but we didn´t have to walk as much as we did on the trek so it was ok to have a full breakfast.

Alpaca is the most tender of meats..and i would have to say, my favourite! If only i could stop envisaging that pretty face...............hence, i could only eat a taster but i´m sure if i were to live here i could get used to it! There are so many llama and alpaca´s here in Peru. It´s their most common of meats, along with guinea pigs! Lamb and chicken is popular too...as is the fish, particularly in the Lake Titicaca area, but the alpaca seems to be in abundance!

Jose met us in the breakfast room of the hotel and introduced us to our Lake Titicaca guide, Percy. We were told he had an interest in archaeology and in the local area and spoke Quechan, Aymara, Spanish and German! A multilinguist! Quechan is the Inca language and Aymara, an agricultural language is his preferred language and is pre incan. Both are the languages of the indians.

His lifestory is fascinating..i could write a lengthy epistle just about Percy!!!!

Meanwhile..we did have a little saga before we all loaded into the mini bus....Jose found out his backpack had been loaded into the wrong van (our worst nightmare!) so we had to wait while he sorted that one out!!!!

He was so calm about it! And just said, oh well, I´ll collect it next time! We were silently grateful it wasn´t our packs that took off in the van as we couldn´t have waited until any next time!

We spotted the boat we were to go over to the islands on...which looked like a real chug! The look on Greg´s face, as we discovered that was the boat we were to go on, was hilarious! Seemed to me the same look as the one he gets when he is a bit concerned about an aircraft...one of masked terror!!!

It really did look as though it was going to fall apart................

From the Puno port it took about 2 hours for us to get to our first island. Percy was in his element as he explained to Greg, Barb, Trish and I a little of the history of Lake Titicaca....

I wondered if that was distract us as we squished our way throught the reeds in our boat that was chugging along at about 5 knots.......

He saw us peering outwards and then told us a little about the varieties of fish in the lake and how tourism was very monitored in the Lake these days. To the extent that the locals direct where the boats will go.

The first island we landed on was called Uros Island. This is a floating island made of totora reeds and according Percy, their legend says they existed before the sun... when the earth was still dark and cold. They say they have "black blood"
and so therefore are immune to the cold!

Jose said they even drink blood.....

Their name is kotsuna which means they are the people of the lake and when you meet them you can see that is exactly what they are...people who live by fishing, weaving and relying on ¨gringo´s¨ (which is the name peruvians call tourists!) to buy their goods.

But when we arrived we were greeted by the nicest of people. After hearing all the stories i think we were imagining we´d be meeting canibals or something...

The island really is floating..and to stand on it, it is sqishy and soft and feels a bit water laden. The women were large and obviously spent most of their time spinning and weaving and cooking fried fish (as you can see belowª!)













One of the leaders of the island did a demonstration for us as well..to show us how the island was made.

He also showed us his boats..made of reeds..see below















They seemed such a proud simple people..and i bought a little textile from one of the children who was seated with all the beautiful colourful mats and things they had to sell! (how could i resist!)

We had to say goodbye to Barb and Trish after this...which was a bit sad, as they had become really good friends after spending 2 weeks together in the Amazon and on the trek.....and it was also time to say goodbye to Jose as well.

After this Percy, our new guide took Greg and i to Tequile Island for the night...where we were to stay in our homestay.

And that is where our adventure got really unique....