Another day, another airport. Officially our “tour” ends tomorrow, but the sightseeing finished yesterday. Today is designated as travelling to Lima and tomorrow the itinereary is ‘Depart Lima’. Check out of the hotel was 1100 so we slept till 1000, checked out and walked to the main street for breakfast before returning at 1230 for the transfer to the airport.

Puno doesn’t have an airport so we had to go to Juliaca. The best attribute of Juliaca is that it is the ‘Gateway to Puno’, while in turn Puno is the ‘Gateway to Lake Titicaca’. Without the lake, neither is worth visiting. It is still an hour and a quarter before the plane leaves and I have sampled all the airport has to offer. There are two men getting a shoe shine in different parts of the airport. Shining shoes is big business in Peru. As we walked through the Plaza de Amas this morning there were five people getting their shoes shined and a sixth shiner was having a rest. Had I known this before, I might have worn my business shoes just to save me cleaning them myself. It looks as if our 1515 flight is boarding at 1345, but I have run out of things to write.

The plane has not arrived, but I just had a packet of snacks that are perfect for the indecisive. There were chips, doritos, twisties and another crispy snack all in the one packet. It’s lik when you walk around the house the morning after a big party and pour all the left-overs into one bowl. I hope they start selling them in Australia.

We slept in until way after the sun came up (ie 0630) had breakfast and headed down the steep hill to our boat for the 1 hour trip to Taquile Island. Like all of the islands in the lake, Taquile is quite hilly. A long slog up hill followed by a longer traverse landed us in the Paza de Amas where we could view some of the unique handicrafts before lunch featuring the Andean staples of rice and potatoes (because one carbohydrate is never enough).

The boat came around to the other side of the island and there were 550+ steps between us and the boat. All down hill luckily. This was followed by another 3 hour boat trip back to Puno. We had dinner at another nice restaurant before having an early night.

Having seen the ‘local family’ in the jungle and the ‘local family’ on the reed islands, we were wondering what sort of accommodation the ‘local family’ on Amantani would provide. We were told there was no electricity, that although the sheets were clean the blankets were often dusty and a few other things that led us to believe the conditions would be quite primitive. We arrived at the island to be greeted by a dozen women dressed in bright red skirts, white embroidered blouses and black embroidered shawls. We all stood in a circle and one by one were introduced to our ‘mamas’.

Our mama was Ana, and between her English and our Spanish, we managed to communicate quite well. Her house was in the second of two communities on this side of the island and seemed to be about 100 metres above the lake. The steepness of the hill and the lower levels of oxygen made it hard work. We had lunch of potato soup, followed by fried cheese and salad. We also had Coca tea. We ate in the kitchen which was separate to the house. The food was cooked on an open fire or sort of. The fire was burned in an oven shaped clay structure with holes in the top to place cooking pots. The kitchen itself was a mud brick building with a tin roof and a single compact fluorescent light run by solar power. Read the rest of this entry »

We had another early start today leaving the hotel at 0730. Our ’special transport’ to the port was via tri-shaw or tricycle. The driver sits at the back so the passenger bears the brunt of most impacts. Although we had what we would refer to as ‘close-calls’, all drivers on the road seemed to adhere to the ‘inch is as good as a mile’ philosophy and it seems to work. We boarded a motor boat and were subject to a surprise seaworthiness inspection by the navy, before heading off to one of over 30 floating islands on the lake.

The Uros islands are man-made from the floating root clumps of reeds. Partions of these are tied together and eventually become a single mass. Successive layers of reeds are placed on top unti lit is a metre or so above the water. The island is anchored in place with ropes and houses are built on top. We were given a talk about how the islands are made and in the centre of the area was a hatch. Below this was an ‘honesty hole’, a hole that went through the whole island. Here it was demonstrated that the island was 2 metres thick and floating in 25 metres of water.

The locals lead a simple life here, based on fish and reedswith a great portion of their income derived from tourism and selling handicrafts. The one room house we looked in had glass windows and lighting provided by solar power. It is uncertain how long this lifestyle will continue as the younger genereations gain an education and head off to the cities to work.

We then boarded a reed boat and rowed to a nearby island before rejoining the motor boat for the 3 hour journey to the next location. Adull trip and a good time to catch up on the diary.