You know those days when you really can't be bothered, when not even the promise of a free drink or a free meal would get you off the sofa and out of the house? When you'd rather watch 'The Bill' on the telly than venture outside and explore the town? When the thought of walking, climbing or hiking made your legs want to retract inside your body?
That's pretty much how we felt in the next few days afer walking the Inca Trail. We wanted to curl up into a ball and surround ourselves with creature comforts. However, we were travelling; it was onwards and upwards to new towns, new sights and new sounds.
It was unfortunate for Arequipa that it was next on our route. Arequipa is apparently nicknamed 'The White City' because of the white volcanic rock which most of the buildings are made out of.
The city is surrounded by volcanoes, the most beautiful called El Misti, the snow capped peak which apparently overlooks the city (actually you couldn't miss it, even from the comfort of our own room). In fact the buildings are so beautiful, it's a Unesco World Heritage site ... whoops.
We did venture out to have a look at the city but ended up going to a Mummy musuem and eating ice-cream, perhaps not even in that order.The only remotely interesting thing that we did was eat a guinea pig. Rob had his a la KFC and I had mine deep fried - whole. It was like eating fried chicken skin full of every bone in the graveyard. What we thought was a local delicacy was actually pretty gross.
So I apologise to Arequipa, the sunniest, second largest, and second most beautiful city in Peru...but we just couldn't be arsed.
By the time, we could be bothered to do stuff again, we had travelled to Puno.
Ah Puno, the name describes it perfectly. For those who can't read between the lines, it smelt like poo. Puno is the port city bordering Lake Titicaca on the Peruvian side. It was rather bare and I guess the weather didn't help - but it looked grey, miserable and as I mentioned, smelly. We only went there to venture onto Lake Titicaca (you can stop giggling now) and visit the floating islands.
So, we got up early and joined a tour from our hostel to the islands - the day was gloriously sunny so we were happy to sit on the top deck of the boat taking us out to the islands and take some shots. The floating islands are home to the Uros - a pre-Incan people that decided to live on the lake. They use a reed called totora as the basis for their islands, literally building them up layer after layer. Walking on these reed islands is a strange feeling; like walking on a large spongy raft made of hay bales.
There are about 42 islands, one containing a primary school, another the general store. Each island has about one immediate family living on it, However nowadays, most islands are only home to the grandparents and very small children, with those of working age on the mainland earning a living and those of school age at schools and universities on dry land.
That's pretty much how we felt in the next few days afer walking the Inca Trail. We wanted to curl up into a ball and surround ourselves with creature comforts. However, we were travelling; it was onwards and upwards to new towns, new sights and new sounds.
It was unfortunate for Arequipa that it was next on our route. Arequipa is apparently nicknamed 'The White City' because of the white volcanic rock which most of the buildings are made out of. The city is surrounded by volcanoes, the most beautiful called El Misti, the snow capped peak which apparently overlooks the city (actually you couldn't miss it, even from the comfort of our own room). In fact the buildings are so beautiful, it's a Unesco World Heritage site ... whoops.
We did venture out to have a look at the city but ended up going to a Mummy musuem and eating ice-cream, perhaps not even in that order.The only remotely interesting thing that we did was eat a guinea pig. Rob had his a la KFC and I had mine deep fried - whole. It was like eating fried chicken skin full of every bone in the graveyard. What we thought was a local delicacy was actually pretty gross.So I apologise to Arequipa, the sunniest, second largest, and second most beautiful city in Peru...but we just couldn't be arsed.
By the time, we could be bothered to do stuff again, we had travelled to Puno.
Ah Puno, the name describes it perfectly. For those who can't read between the lines, it smelt like poo. Puno is the port city bordering Lake Titicaca on the Peruvian side. It was rather bare and I guess the weather didn't help - but it looked grey, miserable and as I mentioned, smelly. We only went there to venture onto Lake Titicaca (you can stop giggling now) and visit the floating islands.
So, we got up early and joined a tour from our hostel to the islands - the day was gloriously sunny so we were happy to sit on the top deck of the boat taking us out to the islands and take some shots. The floating islands are home to the Uros - a pre-Incan people that decided to live on the lake. They use a reed called totora as the basis for their islands, literally building them up layer after layer. Walking on these reed islands is a strange feeling; like walking on a large spongy raft made of hay bales.There are about 42 islands, one containing a primary school, another the general store. Each island has about one immediate family living on it, However nowadays, most islands are only home to the grandparents and very small children, with those of working age on the mainland earning a living and those of school age at schools and universities on dry land.
The remaining Uros are trying to maintain the islands and also keep up with their traditional arts and crafts for us nosy tourists, although they can't stop the march of time.
In some ways this is good, with most of the islands now solar powered rather than the Uros having to rely on rusty generators, but also bad as they have been reduced to a living musuem. As you will often find in a musuem or gallery, some of our tour group were rude and were openly making fun of the generosity of the Uros and their way of life.
It made us sad that these wonderful people with their incredible way of life, had to rely on making money from groups of generally ill-behaved tourists who didn't seem to care that these people weren't just there for amusement and did not give them the respect they deserved.
pn
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