¨The Island¨ continued...

Haayyy,

I sit here, with Daniel, in Puno at Balsa Inn (not to be mistook for bolsa which means Bag... we are NOT at Bag Inn... I know, I´m almost as disappointed as you...) after what is almost definitely the biggest and best meal we´ve had since arriving in Peru two weeks ago. It´s taken us a long time to write anything since the last week has been haywire with business and trips and all sorts of lacking interweb. Presently, we´re waiting for a taxi to bring us to the bus for our 7hr bus ride back to Cusco... so now is as good a time as any to cram in everything possible.

The Cauliflower story: we´ve been trying to decide where to stay for our last night in Cusco, as our prepaid days at the homestay are up as of August 12. I´ve been kind of on the cheapskate end saying we should pay the extra 45 bucks american to stay at the homestay again, but Daniel´s been feeling a little under the weather with the food (or lack thereof) that we´ve been getting. On the final day there for lunch before heading out to Lake Titicaca, we were served three pieces of cauliflower. . . and a bun... over the course of an hour and a half waiting at the table.... so, after lunch we decided that maybe we´ll splurge the extra 40 bucks or whatever to get a hotel that has continental breakfast. And THAT, is how the cauliflower changed the course of our journey!

In the cauliflowers defense, it was grilled in a pan and tasted MIGHTY fine to me. Just sayin´. lol.

So we had our last day of construction which was lovely. Lots of lifting and plastering and getting wet cement stuff down the shirt n in the hair, eyes... whatever.... all in good fun though. We had a great time with the other volunteers, as they were always in great spirits so I really enjoyed my time being manly helping build a preschool/daycare.

We packed up and headed to Puno over a 7hr overnight bus, then got here at around 530am. We were given until 8am at a hotel to sleep, pee, eat breakfast, and hightail it to the next taxi to take us to the dock where we´d catch our boat to take us to the first of three islands in Lake Titicaca. The breakfast was pretty sweet... and neither of us got sick which is always a plus. The first island is one of those islands made entirely of reeds and floats around all weird like. it was cool to visit, but not to live haha. It took about an hour to get to in our LUXURIOUS boat that was STATE OF THE ART and ENVIRIONMENTALLY FRIENDLY.

HA. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

The next island was ¨three¨hours away... but that took more around four because we broke down. Hilarious.

It is so funny to watch some random dude try to poke reeds out from this ole diesal gas guzzline motor creature that was backfiring everywhere with some random Stick that he found. All in good fun! Daniel and I hung out mostly on the roof of the boat where there were a few seats and took pics, but after the Reed Floating island, he was feeling pretty allergic to everything so it was kind of a sin for me to stay up there with him drippin out of every orifice. Poor guy.

The next island was where we were staying overnight. It had no cars, no horses, no cows (but one bull!)... no real running water... lots of outhouses and it was a mountain. As in... the entire island was a mountain. So when we got off the boat n met the man who would be our Padre for the night, we had to hike to his house halfway up a mountain with bookbags chocked full of clothes and water, in addition to our coats and sleeping bags since it gets REALLY cold on the lake. I genuinely thought I was gonna keel over... and Daniel was nice enough to take my sleeping bag so I didn´t have to carry so much. It sucks being so high in altititude since no matter how fit you are you get winded super easily.

Our room was WAY better than expected since it had beds and windows and a door with a lock AND a teensy little light! The doors here are all like... 4 feet high max so I bashed my head off the doorframe more than once going in and out but it was great. The food scared the crap out of us but we didnt have much choice in the matter (quinoa soup, ¨potatoes¨and ... rice I think...). We made our own tea from leaves they gave us. I was afraid I would get an epic parasite but apparently not! woot!

After supper the man and woman we were staying with kind of ambushed us with traditional peruvian clothes and sort of were all AHHH TAKE UR COAT OFF WEAR THE SKIRT NO PANTS WHEEEE so I ended up wearing like 20lbs of garments that were all kinds of almost... rainbowy-amish...ish... and Daniel had a 15lb grey poncho thing to wear. Then we wandered through the bushes and ended up at a dance hall in the pitch black where all the other tourists were equally foolishly dressed and a band played us random flute music and we danced and such. Great times!

Somewhere between landing, and eating supper, we climbed a mountain up to soething like 4130m above sealevel which was INTENSE and all things awesome. Lots of pics!!! Lots of ruins and ancient rock things. It was really super cool too cuz we got to watch the sunset up there. :D

The next day (being today) didn´t really work out as well.... but for better or worse we ended up at another island (after a LONG night being scared shitless from a moth... but we didn´t know it was a moth I thought it was a monster so man cut me some slack hahaha) where we climbed another mountain with two buns in our systems... but then some... Miscommunication we´ll call it... resulted in a bit of a botched lunch... which then kind of went a bit sour mainly because Daniel n I were in the mood to cause a scene.... so we´ll see how that all plays out. We may be getting some money back from the tour ppl... I hope so. If not, than ... well... we´ll see :)

So we ended up back on the AWESOME BOAT that steamed out all this black smoke from this huge pipe in the back whiich was HILARIOUS to all us passengers who were all BFFs by this point. We were getting passed by all the other boats as we ´chugged right along´ our best pace of maybe 5km per hour. hahahaha. Daniel was feeling a bit under the weather from the heat, so he stayed inside the hull of the boat and i went up on the roof again n lid down on a bench n kind of just chillaxed up there with some people from some random country who were all really nice and I got a lovely tan (burn) on my face. Yee! It seriously was an awesome boat ride... no joke it was hilarious and super relaxing as long as you kind of ignored the tour guide lol.

So we ended up back here in Puno where we ate this HUGE meal of cheeseless pizza, cheeseless garlic bread, two bellinis, and a cup of nutella (random but WOOO!!!!) over the course of... 3 hrs? Something like that. We had time to kill so we didn´t really mind the garb service.

So now we´re back at the hotel we started at waiting for the taxi.

A LOT more happened that I wish I could get into epic detail, but this is already super long and then i´ll have nothing exciting to ramble on about when I get home! Safe to say though, i cannot WAIT to be back to the land of toilets that flush without manually throwing a bucket of water into the bowl, and toilets that allow you to throw toilet paper into them... and showers... mmm... showers....

Daniel is feeling much better now that we´ve got a decent meal into us (as well as a few childrens multivitamins lol).

So TOMORROW is Maximo Nivel day where we explain to the company our... experience... with Lake Titicaca... and we´ll see if anything gets fixed up before we head off to the amazon rainforest on sunday. Which, btw, I´m kind of worried about cuz appaently the mosquitos are RIDICULOUS according to these Dutch(?) people we met on the boat. So... we´ll see. Fingers crossed all the bugs died between when those ppl went and when we get there.

Oh... and if you´re wondering about the title about The Island... it was a gem spoken by our dutch friends after our... Lunch... experience... which was all in good fun because really what are you gonna do in the middle of B.F. Nowhere (which, btw, is quite near Bolivia!) ... other than have a laugh and be happy for all the great experiences that make you really appreciative for being born and raised in Canada!

Until next time! Ciao!!!!!!! :)