Alright Folks, Well with only two days until Christmas we were taking on a trip to Lake Titikaka to see the Reed Islands and stay with some locals on Anamanti Island. The Reed Island were very cool. It is amazing how they stay afloat with some many buildings on them. When they want to move all the do is untie it from some sticks and let it float to a postition that is better for them. The reeds not only provide their island, their homes and their boats but also is part of their diet. From there we took a 3/4 hour cruise across the lake (which is in fact the highest lake in the world and therefore much closer to the sun at over 4,200m). Myself and Sharlene got on top on the boat for a bit of a tan. I was a bit silly and did not put any sun cream on for a while and burnt really badly. It was my own fault as Sharlene did tell me to put some on but the cream was all the way in the cabin and i was soooo far away!! My pain got worse when i saw where we were staying. The people were nice apart for their total lack of respect for soap. Our roof was made out of used bags of steam dried fish meal and the room stank. The kitchen was the size of your avg bathroom but with as many flies as you could imagine. Don't get me wrong, i know how lucky we are in the Western world but the avg age of people on the Island is 45. We eat some of the food provided out of guilt but it was horrible. So when it came to dinner we told them that i was really ill due to the sun and needed to go to bed early. We eat some soup, which was quite good and hit the hay. Or in fact the reeds. Our atitude was similar to that oif a child on Christmas eve - the sooner we went to bed the sooner we got to getting up and escaping. We felt very guilty about how we live but are glad for our western standard of living. It was an experience to go through but we now know first hand how poor this continent is and will never forget it nor how lucky we are. Until next time Em & S.