18 - 21 October 2008: Lake Titicaca and into Peru...

Well, what can I say... Peru is one crazy country! Soooo much happened in the few weeks we spent here. I guess the best place to start is the beginning...

Lake Titicaca was stunning. It's just so huge it's impossible to think of it as a lake. We visited the Uros Islands (floating islands), which are made by weaving reeds together and can actually be moved around the lake. The families can just pull up the anchor and move to another part of the lake... if only moving house was so simple! Each isalnd is really small with only one or two families on each one, and families are getting a lot smaller now than they used to be as a result of a Japenese business man who donated solar panels for each island... this provided the power for TVs and in turn the average number of children reduced from 14 to about 4!!!

We stayed with a family on Amantani island over night which was an interesting experience. We felt very priviliged to be staying with the president of the island, Ignatious. His children were lovely however no-one spoke any English and our small amount of Spanish didn't really help as they spoke Quechua so there was a lot of gesturing, smiling and awkward silences!! We were hoping a family stay would provide us with a real taste of life on the islands, however it was clear they were behaving differently because we were there and didn't really involve us in their way of life which was a shame. We helped Olga, the mum, with dinner but when it came to eat we sat at a table and ate with cultlery and the family waited for us to finish before they sat around the stove and ate with their hands. The food - all cooked in a ceramic pot above a flame - was brilliant. All simple, natural food grown on the island and so tasty. Seeing what people can do with the most basic ingrediants and basic equipment has really made me re-think the way I eat.

After dinner Kat and I, and all the other visitors staying with other families, were dressed up in Peruvian national dress and marched down the hill to a 'party'. I was looking forward to it as it was my chance to learn the Peruvian national dance, but it was actually really cringe-worthy and we looked like complete plonkers!! It was so cold we couldn't bring ourselves to take our clothes off so had the dresses on over the top of jeans, jumper and trainers. Not a look I would usually go for I must admit! The 'party' consisted of a load of tourists - all looking as stupid as each other - being shoved in a freezing cold hall, watching some bad (and quite strage) Peruvian dancing (pretty sure the performers were completely plastered. At one point they started shaking up bottles of coke and spraying them at each other and then, unsurprisingly, kept falling over because the floor was so slippery. To this day no one has been able to explain why they did this!) and being dragged up to join in. Not quite the cultural experience we were hoping for!!

We spent the next day visiting Taquile island which was beautiful. The water was so blue and went on for as far as the eye could see. Just beautiful.

When we arrived back in Puno on the mainland we were informed that the bus we had booked to Cusco wouldn't be running as there was an agricultural strike and road blocks stopping any traffic getting to Cusco... this is where the infamous cab journey tale began...

The next day the buses still weren't running. We had to get to Cusco by the following day as we were starting the Inca Trail so, when faced with the choice of a ridiculously expensive flight or a cheaper but longer cab journey (the cab could fit along the mountain roads and avoid the road blocks), we decided to get a cab all the way... 8 hours! 2 Slovenian guys were having the same trouble as us so we decided to share a cab and managed to negotiate a really good price.

When we got to the car the cab drivers 2 kids were in the backseat. He said he needed to drop them at school on the way, but instead of leaving them in the back with us he picked them up and shoved them in the boot with our bags. I couldn't believe it! Once out of Puno - minus the kids - the journey seemed to be going quite smoothly. The driver kept offering to pull over so we could take pictures of the view and seemed like a decent guy... until we arrived at our destination that was and he started demanding double to agreed price. he pulled over on the outskirts of the city, locked our bags in the car and wouldn't let us go until we paid him. We refused (or should I say Matty and Matty our Slovenian body guards refused and took charge!) and managed to squeeze our bags out over the back seats and run away with the cab driver chasing after us and hurling abuse at us... what a great start to Peru!!

My interent time is about to run out, but there will be more tales to come asap...

14 - 18 October 2008: Bolivia - La Paz / Copacobana

La Paz was pretty much a write-off in terms of culture, however we did get very well aquainted with the hospital! The English speaking doctor was lovely (as were the others... didn`t mean for that to sound language-ist!) and the canteen did a mean coffee and pastry! Unfortunately all this time spent in the hospital meant that something was wrong and it turned out poor Rach has fractured her ankle. Ow! She`d been hobbling around on it for 2 days! After many phone calls to her insurance company, airlines etc. she`s decided to head home to recover and postpone the rest of her trip until next year. It`s so gutting for her and so upsetting, and it`s made me realise how quickly this dream could be over. Fingers (and toes) crossed that nothing like that happens to me or Kat.

La Paz isn`t the most convenient city to be on crutches in... in fact it is possibly the hilliest town in the world ever! So with Rach`s leg in cast we spent most of our time helping her drown her sorrows in the hostel bar. And what a bar it was! Loki La Paz is definately the best hostel we`ve been to so far. Great rooms, great building, great staff, great friends, great atmosphere, GREAT happy hour and a free breakfast till 1pm... just what you need after a night of partying!

The witches market was a bizarre experience, dead baby llamas strung up by their legs and all array of smells, in fact the whole of La Paz was quite a bizarre experience. The setting is stunning, tucked between towering snow topped mountains, so the view from afar is beautiful, but up-close and personal it`s not so pretty. It does have a great atmosphere though and the hussle and bussle is never ending! We had 3 days partying hard, said an emothional goodbye to rach and then headed to Copacobana with 2 friends from the hostel to spend time at Lake Titicaca.

It was a trying bus journey after a very heavy night out and once we arrived in Copacobana it was all Kat, Yvonne, Eric and I could do to put one foot in front of the other. Kat and I were heading for a hostel we`d read about, however with our hangovers, heavy bags and the midday heat we gave up and fell into the closest one we could find. After a couple of hours kip we felt revived and went for a walk, only to find the hostel we were looking for was only 2 doors further up, and looked a lot nicer!! Oh well!!

Copacobana is cute, arty town but obviously only there for the tourists. We met up with Eric and Yvonne for dinner and thought we`d found a real bargain when we can across a restaurant that had a set menu of 3 courses for 22 Bolivianos (less than 2 pounds!). Trout is supposedly the speciality here and all around Lake Titicaca so we ordered and eagerly awaited our dinner... no wonder it was so cheap!!!! The portions must have been designed for borrowers! If you weren´t looking closely you could have easily missed the lemon pie we had for desert!

Heading into Peru tomorrow to visit the other side of the lake and stay on the islands... bye bye Bolivia. It`s been emotional!!