Day 76

The Cutest Kids ever
see all photos »

The guide had told us we would all be meeting back in the town hall at 0800 this morning, so we set our alarm for 0700, Breakfast being at half past and having no way to wash other than my camel back full of water, and; god bless em; wet wipes.

Wiped down, we headed for a pleasantly surprising breakfast of Pancakes and jam.

these kids were solely there to pull on the heart string of tourists, I duly caved and bought two bracelets

Archway on the Island near the restaurant
see all photos »

we met the rest of the group on the football pitch and headed down to the boat, on boarding caz realised she had left her watch and her bone Fish hook necklace from New Zealand on the bed, we told the guide after a while, and as he was due in Cuzco the same time we were, we took his mobile and email address.

And hour or so later we landed at the Island Of Taquile and ser about climbing the 572 steps to the top.

The two Swedish girls from yesterday, as attractive as they were decided that steps were not for them and they elected to stay on the boat for the four hours we would be on the island.. Each to their own I suppose.

Forget walking up here with that much weight on my back
see all photos »

We followed the winding steps up and up, and admired the view as it changed on the way. Nearing the summit, we met three young children on the side of the road, they could not have been older than four years old and they were selling Bracelets.

As scruffy as they were and in their cute little voices, they kept repeating the phrase

"un Soles"

"Un soles"

View from teh steps of boat and island
see all photos »

now normally I don’t agree with this kind of thing, bordering on child labour, these kids were solely there to pull on the heart string of tourists, I duly caved and bought two bracelets, which was nearly easy than I thought, the little boy amongst them with his ill fitting hat and what looked like a mixture of Mud and Bean juice down him, actually tried to just give them away until the little girls either side grabbed his hand to stop him from doing it.

As I was buying the bracelets, the; what I'm guessing was mother walked over and I asked permission to take a photo.

see all photos »

After that we headed into the min square which to be quite honest was a complete dump.

with a three story artisan building on one side, and a seriously out of place very modern glass fronted building on the other we had a quick wonder around the market then sat down on the wall admiring the view and speaking to some of the other travellers.

One guy we met had been travelling for 6 months already and had sent a lot of time in Columbia which he really did the hard sell on. Originally from London he had moved to South America to open an up scale Fashion Party Organising Company with a Hispanic friend from London and was travelling for 7 months before they started the company in Rio.

After another short Spanglish talk from the guide about the history of the island we started another short walk toward the restaurant we were to have lunch.

On the ay the guide stopped to talk to us about the traditions on the island and how that the amount of Clips a girl wears in her hair and the colour of a mans hat, denotes whether they are Married, Single or looking for love.

During their rather interesting speech, and whilst several artisan stalls were being set up, the young lad from earlier that had tried to give us the bracelets, appeared with another young boy, they climbed down the wall behind the guide and took a two litre plastic water bottle from out of the bin behind hi, they then started to play with the bottle, banging it on the Bin and on the wall.

the guide dismayed with the noise turned round to tell the two lads to stop it and asked them to go away, they duly turned round and started to climb up the wall, and as soon as they were sure the guide wasn’t looking, the lad from earlier, scaled down the wall, grabbed the bottle out of the bin, shock it at the guide and ran away, this of course had the 14 or so of us in stitches, and the guide lost his place in his speech, gave up and we headed for lunch.

We arrived at the restaurant and had a choice of either Trucha (trout) or Kingfish for lunch, I opted for the former and Caz had King Fish.

During our meal we were serenaded by one of the restaurant employees who was himself training to be a guide.

after his second song, a member of our group, originally from England, having moved to Australia a number of years ago, got up and started to re tune the guys guitar, much to his and the groups embarrassment, it as then that the guy from London whom we had been talking to earlier, turned to us (having stopped with a family with him) and told us how the evening of the home-stay he had got up in the house and started singing Waltzing Matilda whilst Dancing.... His Heart was definitely in the right place.

After that we headed back down a different bunch of steps in our own time to the boat, on the ay we picked up some trinkets from the stalls and Incan Talisman for my dad, a gift for Lee (get excited it’s really bad) and some other bits and bobs.

Back on the boat, I spent most of the two hour journey back sitting on the top deck admiring the wild life and scenery.

When we got back into Port we were whisked straight of in a taxi, which was a bit of a bummer because it meant we didn’t get time to wonder around the Yavari, Built in parts in the Black Country (Industrial west Midlands England) in 1862, they were shipped around cape horn to Arica, where they were moved by train to Tacna before being hauled by mule over the Andes to Puno a process that took Six Years, it has been lovingly restored and is an on going heritage project. Instead however we got straight back to the Hostel and Showered popped next door to book our "Incan express" tickets to Cusco for the following day and then headed out for a cheap Pizza dinner. Hung around in the town for a while, picked up the bus tickets and headed into bed!