We enjoyed shopping today. I bought an alpaca sweater. On our way back to a hostel we met a spit robbery. My boyfriend was spit and soon one woman and two men surrounded us. We knew that they were robberies so that we held our bags tight. One guy tried to steal my boyfriend's wallet in his pocket but he failed and they left.
The Taquile island is located not far away from the Amantani island. I enjoyed a blue lake Titicaca.
We joined a tour to islands for one night two days. In Amantani island there is no hotel, electricity. We stayed in a host family's house. At night we changed our clothes to traditional clothes and went to a disco party. Well, it was a folklore music played by young boys in the island. Local people and travellers enjoyed dancing together. At house we had lunch, dinner, and breakfast. When they cooked, they used a flat stone as a plate, used dirty looking water in a bucket. I was afraid that I had diarria but I was OK. Food was delicious!! I really had a great time with my host family.
# our host mother
# our host mother
Many shops were closed because of christmas. The church was closed, too. We walked streets in downtown many times but it was not much exciting. Then we went to the market and did shopping. We had Inca Kola at lunch. Inca Kola is yellow soda drink. It seems as popular as Coca cola in Peru.
We came to Puno by bus. Puno is a small town and not much to see. At the market many decorations for christmas and fireworks were on sale. We bought a bottle of Champaigne, a cake, and fireworks. At night Puno was sooo noisy with the sound of fireworks. We also enjoyed doing fireworks. When we came back to our hostel the owner's family gave us a christmas dinner. It was very nice.
Aguas Calientes is the closest town to Machu Picchu. We went to Machu Picchu in the morning by bus. It went up to the mountain and it took about 30 minutes. The fee was $9 one way. It was toooooo expensive. The scenary of Machu picchu was gorgeous. The scenary from the top of Huayna Pichu was much better. Huayna Pichu is a small ruin of Inca. It is also called a younger brother of Machu Picchu. Huayna Pichu is located higher than Machu Picchu and we can go there only on our foot. It took about an hour to clim up the mountain from Machu Picchu to Huayna Pichu. The treacking was wonderful because it was scarely, historical, and the scenary was beautiful.
This morning I had a headache. I think it was high altitude sickness. A dose of medicine I brought from the US made me feel better. My boyfriend and I had a field trip. We went to suburbs to see some ruins. We went to the furthest ruin by taxi and came back to Cuzco on foot. The suburbs was very rural, beautiful, and peaceful. In the eveing we went to Aguascarientes by bus and train.