After being in Cusco for what felt like forever, we departed there for our last place in Peru, Puno. This involved a 7 hour day bus through lets say a not so pretty city until we reached the heights of our destination at 3870m.

Fredy, our flamboyant guide, gave us an introductory tour of this small town. Unfortunately mine and Sara's tour got cut short when she threw up walking down the main street. Maybe it was due to being sick of seeing yet another Plaza de Armes, but more likely illness and altitude. Oh well we later found out that that there wasn't a lot else to see anyway as they all just went for food and drinks.

The next day was the night of our homestay with a local family on Lake Titicaca. We took a short rickshaw ride to our boat, which looked like a speedboat, but has no speed, so hence it's just a boat. We then proceeded across the world's largest high-altitude body of water to a small community. Here we were taught how the floating islands are made from reeds and took a ride in a boat made from reed also. From there we had another stop-off on a solid island for lunch before arriving at 'Aluouina Chico', where we would be spending the night. We were greeted by the head of each family and a band, who followed us all the way to the rendevouz point! Here we challenged the locals at football, where it was still difficult exerting ourselves at this altitude, but we faired a lot better this time. As soon as light faded the game was halted and we were thrown into 'cultural' clothing. Traditional dances were performed for us to then imitate while the band continued to play its part.

Once we had finished jumping and skipping around with no clue for half an hour, everyone was coupled off to go to their designated family's abode (I unsuprisingly got paired with Sara!) The daughter (who is 10 years old) was already in the kitchen assisting her mum with food. We were welcomed in and served fresh tea and potato soup with quinoa followed by a potato stir fry. No meat but it was still yummy. Quechua is the local dialect (of which we know one word) and we speak as limited spanish as they do english, so conversations were brief and driven by body language. However we managed to play ludo (one of the gifts we bought the family) with the little girl while her younger brother was occupied by power ranger crayons (another gift). It was fun and the girl seemed quite competent and picked up on english very well for her age.

For breakfast we were served potato fritters and then invited to help out with the chores. This firstly involved letting the sheep out, lasouing and securing them before feeding time. Obviously being welsh I am more than comfortable being around sheep! I think Sara got quite attached to the lambs too. Later we did the peeling and chopping for our lunch (potato based again - I do love potatoes and even better that Sara could never deal with all the carbs), before we said our goodbyes and made our way to our not so speedy boat.

On our return to Puno we felt it was only right to have one more night out to say goodbye to Fredy who was leaving us the next day. Given it is only a small place, we had to bombard a place and generate the party ourselves! It was a successful group effort though giving Fredy a good send off and a lot of fun was had by all including Raf who got her fro out and particularly Fredy who shall we say was showing off his unique fruity moves. Instead of reminiscing about all the good times we have had in Peru, I will look forward, next stop Bolivia!

Xx