6th September - Puno

I wasn't quite sure what had been arranged due to the fact that Jamal had been asleep by the time I got into the Hostel the night before, but I checked at 7am and found that we wanted to go to some islands on Titicaca although nothing was booked. We had looked at a form the night before which suggested a departure of 7:30am or 7:45am, and so, at just after 7am, I headed out to reception to book a trip to the islands. After a little hand-waving and some pointing at the map, I managed to book the 6 of us onto the trip to Los Uros and Taquille. Unfortunately, the Salida (or departure time) appeared to be 7:15am. This posed a problem in that Chris and James weren't even up and Jamal was only 15 minutes into his face cleansing procedure. At 7:10am, I raced around the rooms and explained that people needed to move fast.

The bus arrived and Zoe and Lyndsey grabbed the back seats. I lingered at the door until Chris and James had managed to get their eyes open enough to find the front entrance of the hotel. Jamal wasn't far behind. We were off again.

We went down to the boat and made purchases from the quay-side vendors of bananas, pencils, water and chocolate. The bananas and pencils had been recommended for giving to children who asked us for things on the street - it was suggested that it was better than giving them money directly. The chocolate was for our own use :-)

Others began to arrive onto the boat and were herded into the downstairs bit (we discovered that they didn't want anyone upstairs until the boat had departed). Among the others on boat was Taca from yesterday's adventure. They had to move some of the other boats out of the road to let us out, but eventually we got free and headed out into the bay.

We soon arrived at the first of the Uros islands. These islands are made of reeds and float on the surface of the water. They have small villages built on them but I would guess that they derive a lot more income from tourists than their original trade of fishing. The islands themselves were quite weird to walk on as you had a tendency to bounce with every step, like being on the moon! We received a little talk from our guide who explained about their way of life, the construction of the islands and their history. Although not pushy, the villagers were all sitting by their blankets of wares and, as you began to wander around, would start 'exhibiting' everything they sold. I found this quite irritating - it is easier to look at these things yourself without having things lifted about the place. Anyhow, I got a couple of presents at the first island and then we got a small reed boat across to the next island.

Here, it was slightly more of a tourist-trap - the children, on arrival of the tourists, were encouraged to do a native dance which, to me, just felt wrong. They also had the various stalls and it was also possible to climb their lookout tower, which was kind of cool.

After this, the boat headed out to Taquille. It was cold on board the boat, especially sitting on the roof, but what we didn't realise was that the sun was still extremely strong and that we were getting sunburnt to a frazzle. It took over 2 hours to get to the next island and so we all huddled together under whatever covers we had, to protect us from the chill.

On arrival at Taquille, it was explained that lunch was at the top of the hill and that the guide would go in advance and book everything for us. We all headed up the hill at our own paces and met again at the restaurant at the top. After a fine lunch of fish (except Zoe, who doesn't partake in such foods) we continued down the other side of the hill to a little square with a couple of shops. Chris and James, much taken by the local hats with their pompoms, bought one each. By the position of the pompom, it is possible to tell if the wearer is busy (pompom to the rear) or on the pull (pompom to the right). They looked utterly ridiculous but provided much entertainment value.

We raced back down the hill, not wanting to be late for the boat, dishing out squashed bananas, pencils and colouring pencils willy-nilly. The gifts seemed to be welcomed, although some people experienced pangs of guilt that we were giving such inadequate gifts to people who were so poor. Travel in the developing world is always an eye opener and regardless of how 'poor' UK students may be, sometimes you are forced to admit that we don't even have a grasp of the word 'poor'.

We sat downstairs on the boat back to Puno, continuously burning and mostly comatose. We played a little cards, wrote a few postcards, read some books, etc, and generally chilled out a bit.

On return to the Hostel, we waited again for the 7pm hot water before going out into Puno. There was a carnival in full swing and so there was lots of noise and hustle and bustle. Jamal watched some of it from outside the Hostel while most others dozed in bed.

Once everyone was ready, we headed into the carnival for dinner. Despite numerous warnings regarding his storage locations of choice for his personal possessions, young Mr Akbar had felt he knew better. Unfortunately, this resulted in some cheeky Puno-ian helping himself to his wallet and passport. There was nothing that could be done at the time and so we continued on to dinner.

Given that guinea-pig was on the menu, it seemed rude to come to Peru and not order it and so, alongside everyone's meals, we also ordered a guinea-pig. I must admit my stomach did turn when the said animal was served, whole, on its back, complete with head (and full set of teeth)! After trying some of my own meal, the guinea-pig was passed up to me. I was in the process of trying to cut it when the waiter passed by and, laughing at my foolish gringo ways, explained that we needed to just pull it apart. I'm no good at things like that and so that dead beast was passed back down to James who dutifully ripped it limb from limb, like a cruel, heartless beast ripping a cat to shreds (well, I couldn't do it!!!!). Limbs were distributed to those who were partaking, but I'm sorry to report that, blandness of blandness, it tasted just like chicken, except there was a lot less meat. Oh well, maybe next time.

After dinner, we headed back to the Hostel and looked for Jamal's passport. It wasn't to be found and so James, Jamal and I headed back out through the carnival to the Tourist Police office to report the loss. They were quite helpful and explained that they would draw up a report to tell us that we had lost Jamal's passport and wallet (funny, I thought we already knew that before we went in...). We then returned to the Hostel and went to bed.