Puno - Floating IslandsJul 4, 2008
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The floating islands of Uros on Lake Titicaca
| We arrived at Puno bus station at 5am after a not so amazing nights journey on the bus. At least our local rep was there to meet us, he took us back to what seemed to be his lounge/office, there were two over people sleeping on the sofas so Frank and I sat in the two arm chairs, Kris & Danista curled up on the floor, we got about 1.5 hours sleep before we had to get up and get ready to get the bus to Puno harbour. The bus was late arriving which was a bit annoying, but when it did we got a lift to the harbour with 19 other people. At the harbour we boarded a slightly precarious but it had life jackets so not so bad, the captain didnt fill us with confidence either! We visited the floating Islands of Uros, they were interesting, a load of people living essentially on islands of mud and reeds that float. It was very commercial there and it felt that we had been hurded there just so that the locals could try and flog there "handmade" goods to us, it worked as I bought a couple of things. After the floating Islands we went by boat to the Island of Amantani, the captain got us there even though he seemed to have no navigational equipment at all. Here we given local families to stay with, Frank and I stayed with Florintino, his wife Victoria and their son/grandson (they seemed to old to have a 9 year old son) called Elloy. In the afternoon we hiked to the top of the island and took some photos. When we got back to the house we were staying in, which has had ceilings only 4.5ft high. We had candle lit dinner and then due to a misunderstanding as Florintino spoke mainly Quechua and I spoke mega basic spanish and he spoke a little spanish, anyway Frank and I missed out on dressing up with the others in local dress and dancing around, we were truly gutted. We went to bed early as was so tired from the poor sleep we got on the bus the night before. |
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