Lake Titicaca and Arequipa's Colca Canyon

After Gary left, I went on to Puno, which is southern Peru right on Lake Titicaca. I met a German girl on the bus and we found a room for $4 a night, good stuff. We just relaxed that night because the next morning we left to do a 2 day tour of the Lake Titicaca Islands. There were about 12 people on the tour, Argentina, England, Australia, Germany, Colombia and the States, it was a big group, but everyone was nice. The first stop was the floating islands of Isla Flotantes, we walked around, went on a little boat ride on the local boats and thats about it. The islands are really cool, cause they are all made of the lake reeds, you walk on them, you sleep on them, the roofs are made of them, its crazy, I just didn't quite understand why people still live like that since they have to rebuild the islands every year or so.

Island

Local little girl on the boat

The Island from the boat

After we left the floating island, we spent three hours on our slow ass motor boat to the next island, Amantani, where we would sleep with a family. When the boat pulls into the dock, there are a bunch of local women and the guide talks to them and sets us, the tourist, up with a local family to sleep for the night. I got placed with my German friend and an older couple from England that smoked like chimneys and not much of the conversationalists. The women who we went home with was probably about 90 and I thought was going to die on the way home. She was wheezing and couldn't speak a lick of spanish, only the local language of Quechua. We got back and she made us lunch of soup, and a main course of cold potatoes, cheese and tomatoes. Not much of a gourmet cook, but that is the snob in me. haha. We walked around the island for the afternoon, which was really pretty, awesome views. That night, the rest of the family came home, and they spoke Spanish, so at least we could talk to them! After dinner they dressed us in the local garb and we went to the main plaza for a ¨party¨, which was basically, all of the gringos on the island dressed up like locals dancing around. It was absolutely hilarious. And their idea of dancing is everyone in a big circle holding hands and sort of skipping in a big circle... it got a little boring after the first three songs, but it was still hilarious.

The lake

Local threads



All the gringos

Our house

I left Puno on Thursday morning for Arequipa because I heard the Colca Canyon was amazing. I wanted to meet someone to do the Canyon with so I didn't have to do it alone, but I didn't meet anyone so I had to join another tour. The canyon is about 5 hours outside of town, so its a little hard to get to, but the tour groups provide transport, meals and huts, so it wasn't a bad deal. I had a good group, a little too big though, 10 people! That's too many to go hiking with. So we got picked up at 3:30am on Friday morning and drove out to canyon area. There we ate ¨lunch¨ and started on the hike. The first day was only three hours of hiking down into the canyon, which was very beautiful, but not my favorite scenery. We stayed in a tiny town with tons of vegetation, there were avocado trees and cactus pears everywhere. We woke up the next morning, hiking up and over to another canyon, for three hours, then stayed at this oasis that was very relaxing! But there were like 4 groups there, so it was just a ton of people hanging out doing nothing. It was nice, but I had finished my book so I was bored out of my mind and we played cards for like 4 hours. The next morning, we woke up at 4:30 and started our hike at 5am to leave the canyon. That also took about 3 hours and then the hike was over. So you could easily do that hike in 2 days, but thats what I get for an organized tour. Whatever, it was nice, nothing special. Not on my ¨must do¨ list by any means.

The Canyon

The Oasis

Big group

Tonight I head out to Ica, which I am a little nervous about since the night buses are not known to be the safest source of transportation, but I forked over the extra money for a higher end bus that will hopefully get me there in one piece.