Tina scores with the locals on Lake Titicaca!

Plenty to update on what has been another busy couple of days. The main event was the trip to one of the islands on the lake where we stayed with a local family.

We have now joined up with the 'tour' - 6 others - all of course much younger than us (from 21 to early 30's from the UK, Australia and Switzerland) but a nice bunch of people.

We set off on Wednesday morning from La Paz and travelled along and over Lake Titicaca. As you can see from the photo, it was quite bizarre - the bus having it's own 'ferry' with the passengers following behind in a small boat! Had a lunch stopover at a nice lakeside village called Copacabana before arriving in Puno in the evening.

Early start on Thursday - picked up from the hotel by a fleet of bicycle taxis. Lively ride to the port and then on to the boat to take us firstly to the reed islands. Slightly touristy but lovely weather and good to see how the locals live on floating islands.


After an hour or so on the reed islands it was a further 3 hours (on a very slow boat) to our home for the night, the island of Amantani. Around 2500 poeople live there - with no roads or cars, no mains electricity or water and no hotels. Light bulbs solar powered and generally each house has an external water supply.

We walked up a steep hill to meet our hosts - ours turned out to be a lady called Marjuca who lived with her family in a pretty basic but clean and comfortable house with spectacular views over the lake. We had lunch and dinner in the small kitchen. A good chance to practice the Spanish, especially with 'Papa' who was aged 72 but looked about 90! Mama spoke neither English or Spanish but only the local dialect.

If only we could have captured the meal time scene but it seemed wrong to take pictures.

The islanders eat very little meat but make fantastic soups and live mainly off the vegatables produced on the island - and all cooked on top of a wood burning stove.

After lunch and an hour or so to relax, it was off to the local community sports stadium for a game of football with some of the locals - and watched with some disinterest by the village elders!

Despite being at 4000m, the altitude did not seem to bother Tina who got stuck in with the rest of the team to ensure we did not disgrace ourselves. Whilst not scoring any goals, she did 'score' some coca leaves from the locals - not for tea this time but she is now folding it into a pack and putting it to her mouth to suck! Apparently it takes 14kg of the leaves to help make 1 gram of cocaine so no danger yet - and she swears it cures the altitude sickness but I guess that's where it starts....

The football was great fun - but definitely tough with the altitude - and we still had to endure a climb up to 4500m to see the sunset and then back down to the village for an evening of music and dancing - definitely no pictures to be published of that.

The trip was clearly geared totally around tourism but we really did get a sense of the life within the island community - as beautifully demonstrated by Tina looking remarkable good as she washed in a bucket of water, modelling the very latest in thermal underwear! We definitely needed the 6 blankets supplied!

Tomorrow off to Cuzco - base camp for the Inca Trail. Pleased to have had time to adjust to the altitude and looking forward to spending a few days in one place before we set-off on the trail (next Thursday)