Project Maracas: Salty goodness

Hi everyone...we are now back in Lima, after spending time in Bolivia before we head to Iguassu falls.

Tim at the Spanish Inquisition

The end of our Peru tour was in a place called Puno based near Lake Titikaka. Yes, we tried the guinea pig...it tasted a bit like chicken but was really fatty...thankfully I never had one as a pet when I was a kid!!

One tasty guinea pig please

We spent time on the floating islands on the lake where people actually live - I didn't ask about the toilet situation but I can only imagine!!!. The islands are made out of reeds that grow in the lake fact fans, and they last about 25 years before they need topping up. We then got back on our motor boat to make our way to our homestay. Just as we were in the middle of nowhere looking at the lake glistening with no one else around,the boat shuddered and then stopped. Yowzers. The engine had failed so we were floating in silence for a while...about 30 mins later we set off again as they managed to fix it.
We arrived at the island where we would spend the night with a family...but first a game of football against the locals...it was soooo hard running at that altitude as we were thousands of metres above sea level. Phew. Next, the dancing....we all had to get into the traditional costumes. We watched the locals first then it was our go...it was hilarious. Finally we went to our family's house. Our host was Victor and his wife and two kids...their son was called David and was eight....we had bought them some supplies in Puno and a rubiks cube for the kids...the whole family loved it - my Spanish wasn't good enough to tell them to take the stickers off and put all the colours together like I used to do...haha. We had dinner with them and had our own room to sleep in. The next morning we helped them with their farming and with two tiny scythes we proceeded to harvest a whole broad bean field....it was hard work but the view and the tranquility of the island in the sun really helped. Upon leaving the island the boat broke down again and had to radio another boat to come and get us.

Dancing Peru stylee

The broad bean harvesting tools

Our kind host, Victor

Victor's kitchen

Hard at work

The beautiful lake

The next day was Ellie's birthday, one of the girls in our group, and we were headed on a six hour bus ride to Bolivia. Well the border crossing was very interesting...it took place in a market over a bridge...one side was Peru and across the bridge was Bolivia....through the hustle and bustle of the market we found Bolivian immigration once we were off the coach. We had to queue and there were puddles of dark brown liquid on the floor which stank and even a dead pigeon to go with it...shops that just seemed to sell Coke (the drink, not the drug) and mangy dogs chasing a bitch in heat so they were fighting with each other (I cowered in the corner!!)...A couple of times they even made their way into the immigration office where there was also a beggar woman...Welcome to Bolivia!!

At the Bolivian border

Strict border entry controls

As we continued to La Paz the state of poverty was quite striking and the number of unfinished buildings was staggering. We didn't take to La Paz much...it was soooooo hectic. It was our final night with the tour group though and with Ellie's birthday too a big night out was in order. Our guide, Johnathon, had sorted a cake when were in the restaurant, then we went to the Wild Rover hostel which was total carnage....free shots at the bar and happy hours at different times during the night...happy days.

Wild Rover fun

The next day the Death Road faced us.....we left at 8am and climbed up way past 4000m above sea level into the snow capped mountains. We were given our safety gear, helmets and bikes and off we went. We cycled over 60km and went down to 1300m above sea level so it was really steep with very tight bends. We went from 7 degrees temperature to 30 at the bottom in the jungle...it was really hot and sticky. One of our party came off his bike but thankfully only had cuts and bruises.

Death road survivors

Our next adventure was to the infamous salt flats. We flew to Uyuni, our starting point for our 4x4 trip. What a totally awesome place...we went on the flats and took crazy photos, stayed in a very cold salt hostel, went into the desert, saw moonscape rock formations, saw lava rock formations, went inside a semi active volcano crater and saw the 100 degree mud bubbling away, and the highlight was spending time in a natural outdoor thermal pool at night, next to our very basic dorm lodging (with no running water and two drop pit toilets for about 40 people!!), when it was minus 10 outside, looking at the stars which were sooooo amazing and seeing the milky way, then watching the moon rise, which is something that neither of us had experienced before...it was truly awesome.