Friday
I met up with Sara and Nichole, two girls from ISA at Wong (the grocery store) at 9 so we could buy our bus tickets that we´d need to get around over the weekend. We grabbed a taxi to the airport and left for Arequipa at noon.
Once we arrived, we took a taxi to the bus station, where we bought tickets to go to Puno. The Arequipa bus station was a little insane. Mostly because of the large amounts of bread. It was everywhere in huge stacks. There was probably 10,000 bread rolls in that bus station, and I don´t think I´m exaggerating.
We got to Puno and checked into our hostel, which was pretty nice. Then we walked to the Plaza de Armas to grab some dinner. We found a cute little restaurant and had a nice meal and went to bed.
The next day we woke up and had some breakfast at the hostel, and waited for our tour to pick us up at 9. They drove us to Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, where we boarded a boat that took us out to Uros, the floating islands. It was a gorgeous day and the lake was beautiful!
The floating islands are made from blocks of soil held together by reed roots (this is what gives it its buoyancy) and then are covered in reeds. There are currently about 65 of these man-made islands. It´s a crazy feeling to walk on them. They sort of wiggle like a waterbed, and if you stand in the same spot for too long it might start to sink and get your feet wet.
The President of the island we were on explained to us in Aymara, the local language, how the islands are constructed and told us a little bit about life there, after which the guide translated it to Spanish for us. I took a video, so I´ll try to upload that later.
Then we went with one of the women so that she could show us her house and let us try on the traditional clothing.
Then we got on one of the reed boats that took us over to another island, and from there the tourist boat took us back to shore, and the van took us back to our hostel.
We went to the Plaza de Armas, and they were having a parade of little kids. It lasted the whole time we were there, which was at least an hour and a half. There was a huge crowd of people sitting in front of the church to watch. At one point we saw a bunch of little kids dressed as guerrilla soldiers. That was odd.
We walked around and found a place to eat. It was a little restaurant on a side street and we got soup, rocota rellena (stuffed pepper, a regional dish), rice and juice for S/ 3.50 or about $1.25. Then we headed to the bus station.
We went with Cruz del Sur this time, so it was quite comfy.
When we got to Arequipa, the plan was to walk around the Plaza de Armas until we found a cheap hostel. We got a taxi driver and he asked us where we were headed. We told him and he asked if we were looking for somewhere to stay and how much we were wanting to pay. We told him we were looking for somewhere cheap, and he said he could get us a nice hostel for S/ 25 each. He called the hostel and the guy working there said no, so he called the owner of the hostel and got us the deal. He went in with us to make sure everything was in order, and I saw that the triple room we were getting is supposed to cost S/ 140 and we were getting it for 75! Apparently there was something about 3 lost looking gringas trying to find a place to stay at 9:00 at night that made his fatherly instinct kick in. What a nice guy!
Our room was awesome. It was so pretty and had an amazing shower. And clean! Very clean! Unfortunately we were only staying until 2:30 in the morning. I'll fill you in on that tomorrow! BTW just posted pics of the trip on facebook, so check them out. There's some beautiful ones of Lake Titicaca.
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