Hotel Lago Sagrado Inn Puno

... and stay in an Irish hostel with Irish food, drink, music and tons of other Irish people?” You may as well stay in Ireland. And it really was a party place too. We were there Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night and all three were bonkers madness. Three nights were plenty though, thank you very much, but we had a laugh.




Also in La Paz Colin and I met the Iranian President, President Ahmadinejad. Which was a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure ...

... far enough behind that we didn't have a three bike pile up; that would've sucked. and 2) that there were no broken bones. i know it wasn't milk that did my body good cuz we really haven't had milk since we've been here. must've been the massive wheel of goat cheese. Now, It's tough to make such a horrific fall look intentional and classy, but i've seen enough summer olympic gymnastic routines gone terribly wrong that i knew exactly how to save face. Kinda like when some chick goes flying ...

... the peculiar dried potato, which the guide had told us about: The dry the potatoes in the sun and once they are completely de-hydrated they can in fact last several years; a technique that was used to store potatoes for poorer times even by the pre-Inca cultures.

Back in Puno, I managed to agree with the Spaniards that we should meet later for food and drinks. It was great to have somebody to go out with, although again I must admit that I had problems ...

... naar het busstation, om daar aan te horen dat onze bus er niet ging doorkomen en dat we een andere maatschappij moesten nemen. Deze was de maatschappij Power, dat bekend staat als economisch voordelige bussmaatschappij. Eentje dat we niet volledig vertrouwde, maar de dame van Litoral had al 2 tickets voor ons, dus zat er niets anders op dan die maatschappij te nemen. Ze verzekerde ons dat het dezelfde service was (eten inbegrepen, heel veilig en een directe verbinding zonder stopplaats ...

... at all, and speak slowly, almost peacefully. An Uro dude gave us some explanations, numbers, ... I remember mostly numbers (as usual) : the 95 islands, floating above 9-11 meters of water for about 600 years, and the size of the lake (the biggest of south America) : 180km long, 70km wide and max depth of 374m.
The reed structures are impressive. Islands first : about 2-4m of "dried-compacted-rotten reed" (aka humus) blocks makes it float; it is covered with fresh dried reeds ...

... if they were white they were single, but if they wore a white belt and a red hat, well he’s currently living with someone but not yet married. There seemed to be plenty of white belts around. The ladies wore black shirts, a white blouse and if they were married they held, attached to their arm, a small colourful pompom. If they were single these pompoms were much larger and, I guess, used in courtship battles.

Our guide Ruben gave us a general talk on the ...

... selling their handycrafts. The men actually do the knitting here, not the women. The quality of the work is amazing. I bought a couple of bracelets and a pair of llamaīs or alpacas iīm not sure what they are, but they are the new mascots of this trip! Lunch was at a little family run restuarant, no menu, just a choice of fish or omlett. First we had some soup with quinoa, which i never had but wasnīt bad. And i got the omlet and it was an interesting ...

Well, our first border crossing went pretty smooth:

Take exit paper to man in green army uniform, stamp, walk across 100 yard bridge, stand in line on left of room trying not to cough all over the place and get extradited for spreading germs, see non smiling she man behind desk who rams stamps down and bangs alot, get evil looks, take passport and get back on bus. Goodbye Bolivia, hello Peru!.

We got hankered by a cheesy fecker ...

... first. They didnīt speak Spanish or Quechua but Aymara which is a pre-Incan language. However, they were so nice to us that we soon got over our nerves. The family consisted of the grandparents, the mum and dad, two little girls and a 2 week old boy!!!

They took us to their local football pitch where we met with the rest of the group and challenged the local boys to a game. It wasnīt really fair because they were about 14,played with no shoes and had to go up ...

... ride back to Puno. I listened to my mp3 player and napped on the upper deck in the sun =) I kept thinking about the SNL skit ĻIīm on a boat, *****!Ļ and giggling (to myself) =)

Later that night, met Giuseppe for dinner and I tried alpaca for the first time. It was a cheap cut and tasted a little gamey, but pretty much like beef. Decided to head to Copacabana and Isla del Sol (largest island in Lake Titicaca)...