Puno

  Puno, Peru
Monday, November 10, 2008

Seven hour trip to Puno, our last stop in Peru. We have a lovely view of lake Titicaca from the room. We can see locals making their sheep drink water from the lake. It is quite peaceful. Puno is really high: almost 4000m! Air is thin, so walking up the stairs is a real effort!

Mmmmiam..guinea pig (cuy)

Today (11/11/08), we took it easy in order to acclimate to altitude. We visited the town. Nothing much to see. It took us ages to find a laundry (usually there is one every two meters), at the top of an ascending street. Imagine us out of breath asking how much a kilo of washed clothes costs? -  Van, ne lis pas la suite- Sean had guinea pig for lunch. You could see his baked little head (avec les dents effectivement, Nico!). I tasted some too. It tastes like a moist chicken. Not bad. We discovered today that we were given a fake 5 soles coin! That really annoyed Sean. We have been trying to get rid of it since, but not succeeded!

On the 12/11/08, we headed to the harbour, jumped on the first boat (quite rotten, with broken windows) to go to the floating islands of Uros. During the journey we got to talk to a local who could speak English (he was living in the States and visiting family). There are 45 floating islands, made out of straw. In the past, people built these islands as they felt safer than on the land. The islands have anchors so that they do not move in the lake. Nowadays, people on the islands live from tourism. They also manage to grow potatoes! Every morning, a few boats come from Puno to sell food to the islands.

Don´t need a car

There are 3 primary schools. The children need to go to the city if they want a higher education. On the second island we visited, a toddler started to play with Sean, he wanted to ride him like a horse and was loving it. He has a chubby snotty face but laughed so hard. Then a little girl came, pushed the boy and climbed on Sean´s back! The little boy started crying so Sean had to give out to the rude girl. Them she came on my back..as second best, I suppose. We were sailing from one island to the other on a typical straw boat. We had a great day. We took a cycle taxi (pousse pousse) back to town, had a something to eat and collected our laundry. We also learned the meaning of women´s pom poms at the end of their long braids. If the pom pom is colourful, they are single, if they are black, they are married. That says it all..

Making friends with snotty face

We are heading to Bolivia tomorrow. Another country, another adventure...