Hey!

Ive done soooo much since the last blog so to get it all in am going to have to be a bit brief which will upset you so much as i know you love reading my endless ramblings lol!

I hate this stupid keyboard as well so it taking me ages to type!!! K well i met my group who are all really nice, theres Kelly and Olly from gatwick who have travelled all the way from Rio to here and Mikko and Peiia from finland who have flown out just for this trip. Our guide is really nice too and called Guido, he´s from Peru and his home town is Puno so he´s seeing his family here too. We left La Paz adçnd took and bus over the border to Puno which is right on the edge of lake titicaka which is the largest lake in the world above either sea level of 2000 metres i cant remeber lol but its high up anyway and mucking huuuge!!!!! The first night we went to a lovley little restaurant where they had live traditional music and students from the arts centre doing dances all night, i dont know how they did it, we were all out of breath walking up the stairs!!! i think im all used to the altitude now apart from if i run or do anything remotely energetic so we just take things slowly and chilled! the restaurant had THE best food ive eaten!!! and it was presented like something gordon ramsey woulf make! i swear it was amazing and my whole meal cost about 3 quid! it was crazy the quality you got for so little and with live entertainment and it was only a tiny place too!

The other day we checked out puno and we were just walking around exploring when we got to a square with all the offical buildings and noticed that there was literally a couple of hundered police some with riot gear some with massive shot guns and rifles and everything was oddly really quiet but nothing happened apart from a guy came out of a building surrounded by all the police and what looked like journalists and went into anther building but it was all still quiet and calm, it was really quite odd.

Yesterday we caught the south american equivalent of a thai tuk tuk and went to catch a boat to a little island called tequile or some spelling like that lol which sounds like tequilla when you say it but there was no tequilla on it. we went around and saw the people who live on the island and their homes and main square where they were having a festival. we´ve been quite lucky so far in the places we have stopped have happened to been having celebrations and festivals so they are all dressed up and singing and dancing. When we stopped just before the border into peru we stopped at copacabana where there was a catholic festival going on and people were decorating their cars and all dressed up in the main square bit there too. Anyhoo back to lake titicaka, we stopped on that island for lunch and i ate an omlette! thats bot very exciting news for most of you but for the ones who know ive never eaten eggs in my life its pretty cool lol and i even liked it a bit!!! lol Then we headed for amantani island where we were going to stay for the night and met out Mama´s, i shared with Kelly and Olly and our mama was called Epifanya, epi for short, and she was married to a guy who´s nickname was maradonna! he was very excited when we called him that! and a two sons johnny and brian. Johnny´s at the uni on the mainland and brians 11 and mad! we gave him a ball which had netting around it and he as crawling under the beds with it on his head going spiddy-man!!! as he had a spiderman top on. he was really cute though! the guys played footy against the locals and some of the rest of us went for a little hike up the hill to see the sunset. only 3 of us got to the top and it was amazing, and there was people selling hats and gloves and jumpers made of the alpaca wool which is uber warmio! they sell that kind of stuff everywhere ive been so far and im gunna get one of the jumpers so i dont die up machu picchu! and i noticed they sold tiny ones so me and kelly who also has a toy girraffe called geoffrey who shes taking around the world, both immediatly were like wow we have to buy one! so my pg tips monkey now has a gangster peru hat like me! mines even reversible which is way cool lol!
After the hike and footy, no before that sorry, we saw all the mothers and the leader of the island all doing their work by traditional methods, weaving, crushing seeds for flour, grinding barley etc which as also really interesting. The men here do all the knitting and the women weave so its quite funny to see all the men walking around knitting or spinning wool.
Then we went back with out mama´s or in our case brian took us home and the sun had set ages ago but the moon light was so strong we could see perfectly and brian danced and whistled and was crazy all the way home! Then we had dinner with them and it was sooooooo good! we had a pasta soupy thing first and then rice with veggies in a sauce washed down with mint tea which was also real good. Then we went clubbing peruvian styly! we got all dressed up in their tradtional wear and went to a hall thing were two bands played local music and we danced, well all held hands in a circle whilst the locals RAN us around the circle whilst we were all trying not to die from the altitude lol but it was really cool to see and we took pictures of us with our lovely clothes and our mama´s!
On the way back to the mainland today we stopped at the floating islands, there were little islands completely man mde from reeds, the roots make it float and they load up stacks of reeds on top and build their houses and boats from the reeds too. The cover picture of this blog is exactly like the boat we got a ride on today and we all made pathetic attempts and rowing it. Then the locals showed us how to do it looking like it was no effort at all but i think it helped that they were built like sumo wrestlers!!! It was also funny to see all these island dwelling people that live so basically and still live in practically the same ways they did hundreds of years ago except now they have solar panels so they can watch spanish soaps on tvs!!! we thought that was cool!
We are heading for Cuszco tomorrow where we will spend 4 days before doing the inca trail YAY!!!!! i cannot wait for that and we´ve already been as high as the top of it is so we know we wont suffer to bad with the altitude which is good!
So take care, thanks for your messages and speak to you all soon
lotsa lotsa love Natalie
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PS its not hot here but its really sunny and the suns really strong here as we have found from our little red faces! i even have a sun burnt eye ball!!! and a white patch were my fringe was it looks rather silly!!! so now its like the sunblock parade if we go out!!!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx