¿Donde estamos? (Peru part 2)

I realised that in my eagerness to get to bed last night I forgot to mention where the title came from.

My favourite description of Inca Kola so far is "It tastes like butterflies and rainbows and childhood memories." Basically it's a drink made by the one and only Coca-Cola company (who also sell most the water in Peru) that tastes vaguely like Irn-Bru but is fluorescent yellow. Delicious.

Anyway today brought more clouds and rain. Although when the sun did shine it was boiling hot. I don't think I've ever been that hot and then that cold in a single day without there being a fire present. That's a surprisingly complex sentence to translate into Spanish as I proved today while talking to 3 travellers, two from Lima and one from Italy, who were touring the country separately but together for the day.

I also got talking to a girl who, although I was sure she was a couple of years younger, turned out to be my age. She lived in Argentina but had been born in Holland and went to an American school so spoke good, American English. She, like me, had ditched the parents and started off ahead down the 500 odd steps back to the boat. We talked for a while and she gave me her full name so I could track her down on facebook. We parted ways after our abandoned families eventually made it down the steps and she slept or read most of the long boat journey back.

I probably at this point should explain what the majority of my day consisted off. Most of my time was spent transversing waves that were big enough to soak the windscreen on the boat and wake most the passengers but although they made reading more of a challenge they didn't manage to stop me plowing my way through Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. The rather annoying tour guide whose English I understood little better than his Spanish almost did though but he shut up after 20 minutes or so when it became clear that only one or two out of the 28 on the boat were paying any attention.

We were on Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the World. I have no idea what is defined as navigable, but I do know it's beautiful, with the clear blue water shimmering under the Peruvian sunshine and mountains surrounding the lake. I still can't get over how everyday here something I see stuns me completely. Anyway while on the lake we visited some local communities that lived on the island of Takile (with the 500 odd steps) and on some man-made floating islands.

Now when I first heard man-made floating islands I assumed plastic blocks with planks of wood covering the surface, but in fact these islands pre-dated the Incan Empire. Built by a tribe trying to escape enslavement by the marauding Incas, these islands were built out of reeds and some variety of floating root. Unfortunately as with most "native" tourist attractions they had been tainted by the tourism trade but there was definately still a traditional charm about the islands, that had to be constantly built up as the reeds rotted, and it was an interesting experience.

We took a brief trip, despite the rain, on what was supposedly a traditional reed boat, which I doubted considering the blue tarpauling was showing through were the reeds wore thin. We got another sheet of blue plastic to cover our heads but unfortunately it wasn't large enough to cover everybody sat on the boat so us brave Brits (my family) endured the rain that we were so used to until everyone had bunched up sufficiently for us to squeeze under.

However the taint of tourism was most obvious when, as we were leaving the island, they sang first "twinkle, twinkle little star" followed by "alouette, bonje alouette" for the English and French tourists respectively. My brother did not approve and continued to make comments about the way that tourists visited different cultures out of interest but by doing so turned all the wonderful cultures into the same old tourist trap and so removed the whole reason that tourists visit. I couldn't help but agree with him.

Following this was the trip to Takile, which included a lunch of either trout or omelette, I like neither fish nor eggs but decided that the trout was the lesser of 2 evils as altitude sickness had reminded me of why I dislike eggs (they actually taste like sick to me) and was rather pleased when on eating the trout I could detect only the faintest taste of fish.

The boat ride back to the mainland was much smoother than the one on the way out and the clouds had disappeared while we were on Takile so I sat on the roof of the boat enjoying the view and the sunshine, possibly even tanning slightly despite my mother deciding to slap factor 50 suncream on any bare bit of skin. 2 and a half hours later we were back 0n dry land.

We went out for tea at a pizza restaurant around the corner that played an acoustic mix CD repeatably while we waited, for longer than expected, for our food. I didn't mind the wait though and the food was delicious when it came. My main complaint was with the music. The acoustic cover of bleeding love was barely bearable and Don't Stop Me Now was clearly never meant to be played acoustically and bordered on depressing. Even this though seems reasonable compared to the music played constantly through the speakers in the hotel lobby, all on panpipes, and contains not only House of the Rising Sun but also a ridiculous version of Hotel California. Panpipes and The Eagles were never meant to be mixed.

While I´m complaining I thought I'd mention the Peruvian keyboards, where it is nearly impossible to work out the combination of buttons you have to press to achieve an @ sign, and I appear to have acquired some form of insect bite or sting on my arm that is becoming quite irritating.

But considering that those are my major complaints everything here is wonderful. I only hope that I don't miss it too much when I eventually have to drag myself home and back to a world of college and exams.

I plan to find another computer during the next week but for now it's adios y buenas noches.