An island called Amantani

Arriving in Amantani we were allocated to the different host families and our guide Eddy once again acted the kindergarden teacher - we had to meet him at 4pm and not to forget drinking water, sun blocker, jacket etc. ;-)

I ended up in one family with Susanne, Ryan and the Japanese guy. The house was a two storey house in a beautiful setting on a hill, many roses, sheep and two green outhouses ;-) Unfortunately the family consisting of two elderly women, a younger one and a girl of maybe 10 or 11 didn't seem to communicative. I guess, they have had their fair share of tourists staying with them and just saw us as an source of income, not as "guest". I had hoped the homestay would be a bit more interesting but thank God my little group was ok and we didn't get bored. At 4pm we met the rest of the group and hiked up to some temple ruins. As usual Eddy did the kindergarden teacher and bored us with telling the same thing first in English and then in Spanish. Like most Peruvians he seems to think that Peru is unique and he told us about the shamans, medicinal herbs and terrace system as if it we had never seen a thing like that before. So we got a bit bored... but the view from the top of the hill where the temple ruins are compensated us for the kindergarden lesson. An enterprising couple of locals had set up a small outdoor café serving the very tasty local muña tea, coca tea, coffee and picarones and we sat down with backpackers from all over the world to enjoy the sunset over the Titicaca - a very beautiful and decidedly mediterranean panorama!

After the sun had set we stumpled back down the hill to enjoy the dinner, our host ladies had cooked for us - soup and rice with vegetables, simple but tasty! After dinner the real fun started - we were dressed up in local clothes to join the rest of the group for a little party. The best part of it was getting dressed in the tiny kitchen of our hosts, taking pictures - and trying to go to the outhouse with torch in hand and too many skirts and scarfs to hold up ;-)!

The party itself was pretty boring as not all had dressed up and most seemed to be tired and went home pretty soon... and our "local hosts" took off at 10pm sharp... so unfortunately it was one more point of the touristical and commercial programm. But we had enjoyed ourselves and once again nature had a surprise for us in store - the starry sky over Amantani was the most beautiful one I've ever seen! It even topped Guyana! There were so many stars that we couldn't even make out the star signs! Amazing...