Our trip through Peru has almost come to an end. Tomorrow we leave Puno and make our way to La Paz in Bolivia. I am feeling very sad yet happy at the same time because we´ll be meeting the family very soon.
Ok I better get typing! The last few days have been great! From visiting Cusco´s local archaeological sites; Sacsaywahman, Tambomachay, Quenqo, Puka Pukara to shopping in the local markets to experiencing the wonderful nightlife clubbing in Cuzco....it´s all been amazing! Cuzco is a very busy city and there always seems to be something happening everyday. In total we spent 4 days in Cuzco and we saw two parades which celebrated two of the 400 saints that Cuzco regularly celebrate down the streets of the Plaza de Armas (the Main Square). On the last day in uzco there was another parade. This one was a Marching Parade that is held every Sunday through Cuzco´s main Square. It starts with the Military Band followed by a series of different groups like schools, hotels, environment protectors, dancers.....lots of different groups! Cuzco was certainly a great place to hand out.
The nightlife was pretty amazing too! Dad and I went to three different clubs in the main square, Mama Africa, Mythological, and Extrem. All had different music but al were catchy in their own way. Mama Africa with Rythm n Blues/R 'n' B, Mythological with a mix of everything rock/dance/trance/heavy/classic/rnb/pop and Extrem where all the more younger crowd hung out played popular reggaeton/rnb music. We stayed in Mythology for most of the night though. Many tourists hung out there as well.
From Cuzco we took a very very long bus ride to Puno. From 2-10pm. The average speed of the local bus was probably about 40km/hr. The driver had to dodge all the pot holes along the way. Daniel you´d have freaked out to see the size of some of them I reckon! But at least the bus ride over provided some great on board entertainment! Some provided by the upset locals wanting to sit down but most of it came from the shonky but hilarious Indian movie that played on the tv inside the bus. The cinamatography was a classic! There were a lot of bulls used in the making of the movie which was just hilarious! We´re on a mission to find out the name of that movie too, we´ve asked Nicolas our tour guide to help us out! lol He just laughed.
The last two days we visited beautiful Lake Titicaca! Before we boarded the boat at the port we bought groceries and stationary for the family we would be staying with on Island Amatalia. After that we took a very slow boat ride (about 3 and a half hours) to Isla Tequile where we ate beautiful Quencha soup for entree and Trout with rice and chips for the main. The people on the island spoke Quechua and were all helping each other out in removing the corrigated iron roofing from one of the buildings-even the women. The women have to be very strong there because the community operates like a communist one where everyone helps out.
From there we took our boat again to Isla Armantani where we would be meeting our local family that we would be staying with. Our young mama wasn´t a mum at all. She was 17 and single and her name was Amelia.
She took us to her beautiful large house which was near the port where we arrived. Later that day we played football (soccer) with the local kids! That was soooo much fun! Unfortunately our skills were no match for them though. They beat us 4-1! We put the blame on the alttitude though since we were almost 4000m above sea level.
After the ame we headed back to our families´places to eat dinner.
Dad and I were lead back by Yuni (brother of Amelia who was 13 years and in 2nd year High School). He appeared quite shy. When we reached the house we joined mum (Ancelma), Amelia and Yuni in the kitchen and chatted in Spanish to the children who knew how to speak Spanish. They were interested in finding out more about us and what we did for a living. The family were very friendly and kind. After dinner we presented them with the groceries that we had bought earlier in the day adn they were extremely happy and it gave us such a nice feeling.
The cooking smelt great and tasted absolutely devine! We had yummy vegetable soup followed by vegetable pasta with rice. The people on the Island are veetarian so it suited us quite well since Dad and I mostly eat vegetable back home in Oz.
The itchen was very small but cosy. It was very smokey inside too and the smoke was stinging my eyes but I didn´t mind too much since we were with the family and in a warm place. It gets quite cold on the island.
After dinner we headed up to our room and was later presented with traditional outfits that we were had to wear to the party that was going to take place up on the hill. Ancelma helped me get dressed in a beutifully embroidered and highly decorative outfit. There were I think 6 pieces in total! When Ancelma wrapped the belt around me it felt so tight like a corset! The skirt was very heavy too!
Dad´s outfit was quite easy, he only needed to wear a big poncho. :)
So after dressing up we walked up the hill to the party which had already begun. No one was dancing yet though. Everyone in our group looked amazing! The girls looked so beautiful and the men quite macho in the ponchos!
The music was typical music of the Andes with Flutes, drums and vocals. Yuni (brother) was the drummer in the band! He played very well.
I was asked top dance by one of the local men there by the name of Hover, pronounced whober. He was a good dancer and spoke very good English which really surprised me!
The rest of the night went very well with all of us dancing and joining hands with other tours groups to form one huge chaing that raced through the room.
What a great night we had.
The next day we had to farewell our family who had been so nice to us. I bought the chullio (beanie) which was given to me to wear whilst we were on the Island.
We headed to the Isla Uros where we visited some of the communities that lived on floating reed Islands! It was incredible to come off the boat and jump on the soft reeds. Lucio our local tour guide gave us a history lesson of the place and it´s people as well.
We took a reed boat across two of the floating islands which was very relaxing, not like the one we had experienced coming over to Isla Tequele and Amatalia.
After visiting the reed island we made our way back on our regular boat to the port at Puno.
We´re back in Puno and had quite a relaxing day just wondering the busy streets and organising some of our photos to be printed for the family we stayed with. I´m going to post it to them from here in Peru. The fotos turned out much better than expected too!
We ate at another great restaurant tonight which Nicolas brought all of us too. Our last dinner in Peru. Tomorrow we head to La Paz where we finish our tour. It´s been a great ride and experience.
Comments
found your blog from juans.
sounds like you are having an amazing time. i've loved reading about it =)
lucy xoxo