Home stay

Today saw us leaving Puno earlier to head out onto Lake Titicaca. This giant lake was once part of an ocean, but when the tectonic plates moved they pushed up some mountains from the ocean floor and Lake Titicaca came up with it. We got a pedal driven tuk tuk to the port and then had a three hour boat ride to the Amantani Islands where our home stay would be.

We had a walk up to the village on the mountainous island and were soon introduced to our home stay families, with each couple staying at a different house. They were lovely and very welcoming but it was difficult to speak to them due to the language barrier. These people are basically the natives and descendants of the Incas and therefore don't actually speak Spanish, they speak Quechua. We had picked up minimal Spanish during our stay and all we knew of Quechua came from a sheet of simple phrases they had given us on the boat, and while our Papi did speak Spanish the options for communication was still the language we didn't really know or the language we really didn't know. Nevertheless both sides battled on and over a delicious lunch they cooked for us, we did our best to have a conversation using the universal language of hand gestures. Things became easier when our Papi, Ruben, got out his photo album and we could ohh and aww over it.

After lunch we had a game of football (aka soccer) with some other tourists and a couple of the locals, then went for a hike up a mountain to further prepare for Machu Picchu. There were stunning sights from on top as well as a little temple that was rumoured that if you walked around it three times with a wish in your mind it'll come true. As we all returned home from our travels happy, healthy, alive and safe maybe it's true. So just to break it down for all of you we were on a mountain top, on an island, in a lake, located in a mountain range, in Peru...it was pretty cool. It was made cooler when some of the locals were selling handicrafts on the mountain path and Holly bought me a little crocheted turtle wearing a beanie. I named him Señor Turtle.

That night after dinner we all met in the town hall, dressed up in the local garb (which for the girl involved many colourful and heavy dresses and for the boys a poncho and a beanie) and danced. It was nice and definitely an experience but by the end we were all fairly tired. So it was off to bed.

- Damian