16th April 2005

We made it into Peru, crossing probably the worse border i have ever seen, basically you could just walk through if you wanted - i didn´t, i wanted the stamp in my passport!

We travelled to Puno which is on Lake Titicaca (correct spelling this time). Headed out to the restaurant where i had a lovely Elpaca steak (which i can add to the Llama steak i had in La Paz) both were very nice and tender but think Llama wins. Peru is famous for having Guinea Pig on the menu, which 2 people had (braver than me) and i´m glad i didn´t. It came whole and you could still see it´s little teeth showing through.

Yesterday we went to Amantani Island in Lake Titicaca where we stayed with local famalies for the night. Our family lived up at the highest point on the very big hill, good exercise though. Good to see how the locals live and they did look after us very well. Our pathetic Spanish volcabulary was useless on the island as they speek a completely different language! Still we learnt to say hello, thankyou, where is the toilet and one beer please! After lunch we all met up and had a few games of footy (6 aside) against the locals. Trouble is we were nearly 4,000m above sea level. The away team was knackered after 1 minute! Still feel the locals cheated by running all the time. We didn´t do too bad, lost all 3 games though! But they were close! I did ok, set up 1 goal and didn´t let any in while in goal. My lungs were complaining for the rest of the day though - must remember never to do something as stupid as that ever again!

In the evening our famalies dressed us up in local dress and held a fiesta for us. For the girls it meant several layers of dresses pulled tightly, an embroided top and an embroided shrowl. For the guys it was a poncho! Sometimes it is a lot better to be male! Lots of local style dancing to local music (basically pan pipes) with the local girls which was far too energetic for my liking and interupted the beer drinking. Still have learnt a few new moves for the next time i go clubbing.

We said goodbye to our families this morning and headed to another island which wasn´t so good. Lots of walking (up hill again) to the town square which was not very impressive. Our local guide then gave us a talk about local history which apparantly went on for ages, i fell asleep during it! Thankfully i wasn´t the only one. It was good for topping up the tan though.

Back in Puno for one more night then we move to Cusco were the base is for the Inca Trail, which we start on Wednesday. The exercise we ahve just had should be of help to us but think i´m going to collapse at least 3 times over the 4 days.