Peru
Peru has been a bit of a slap in the face since leaving beautiful, tranquil Bolivia.
Since crossing the border into Peru from Bolivia around Lake Titicaca into Puno, it´s been an onslaught of continual harrassment by local vendors, street touts, tour operators and huge groups of package tourists. A shock to the system and a rude interruption.
We only stayed in unattractive Puno to wait for the train run by Orient Express to take us to Cusco. In the meantime, we occupied ourselves with visiting the floating reed islands (Ouros) to investigate whether they were real or fake. There´s a rumour going around that the inhabitants are actually mainlanders who are ferried across to the islands in the morning before the tourists arrive and then taken back to Puno at the end of the day. Although a HUGE tourist trap, it was interesting (fake or not) to see how ppl lived on these islands where everything, including their boats, was made of reeds. We came across curious activity on one of the islands where we saw men and children hacking at the floor with saws and poles and discovered that the community was having huge disputes. To resolve the problem they decided to cut the island in half! Still undecided about the validity of the islands, we then went across to see the incan funerary towers which were of interest to Dave. These towers were colossal and I was quite impressed with the precise workmanship of the incans.
The train ride was fantastic and thoroughly recommended. We ´roughed´ it in backpacker class which we found was exactly the same as first class (silver service, food, entertainment) except for the seats and were grateful for the advice given by a local tour operator to not pay for first class tickets.
After 10hrs we reached Cusco.........
Since crossing the border into Peru from Bolivia around Lake Titicaca into Puno, it´s been an onslaught of continual harrassment by local vendors, street touts, tour operators and huge groups of package tourists. A shock to the system and a rude interruption.
We only stayed in unattractive Puno to wait for the train run by Orient Express to take us to Cusco. In the meantime, we occupied ourselves with visiting the floating reed islands (Ouros) to investigate whether they were real or fake. There´s a rumour going around that the inhabitants are actually mainlanders who are ferried across to the islands in the morning before the tourists arrive and then taken back to Puno at the end of the day. Although a HUGE tourist trap, it was interesting (fake or not) to see how ppl lived on these islands where everything, including their boats, was made of reeds. We came across curious activity on one of the islands where we saw men and children hacking at the floor with saws and poles and discovered that the community was having huge disputes. To resolve the problem they decided to cut the island in half! Still undecided about the validity of the islands, we then went across to see the incan funerary towers which were of interest to Dave. These towers were colossal and I was quite impressed with the precise workmanship of the incans.
The train ride was fantastic and thoroughly recommended. We ´roughed´ it in backpacker class which we found was exactly the same as first class (silver service, food, entertainment) except for the seats and were grateful for the advice given by a local tour operator to not pay for first class tickets.
After 10hrs we reached Cusco.........
posted by W at 3:08 pm
1 Comments:
it´s coming!!!
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