Rick Rambles – A blog

The pictures from the trip are linked off of:

http://www.brantct.com

Well they told us to be ready at 6:15 for our boating island adventure… We got up at o’dark early again… and we actually had a nice breakfast together.  Our ever so on the ball tour people (Condor Travel) failed to tell us where to meet them.  I assumed the lobby and Marlo thought the boat at the end of our dock would be the place.  We split up in hopes of tracking them down.  I found her in the lobby.  She was dealing with another couple about a lunch issue…  That did not add to my confidence level.  I told her several time who we were.  You have to understand that sometimes I am Mr. Marlo and sometimes Marlo is Herrick Rick, so I threw all the names at  her.  She was a bit confused.  She then asked one of the scary questions…  “who was your guide yesterday”  did ya hear it, the familiar sound of the ball hitting the ground, bounce, bounce…  followed by the oh we so sorry… why are you here at 6:15 she asks.  I calmly reply because you told us to…  oh no she says, you should be here at 7:15.  She recommends that we walk s l o w l y down the dock to the boat.  Well the dock is only 100 feet (or 30 meters) or so.  I calculate the SLOWEST that we can walk down the dock and figure we will go back to the room and mourn the sleep that was deprived by… them…  We are not detoured or even worried about it.  Just one more thing…  oh yea, Puno is right out of the third-world pictures.
We were driving here in our comfy mini van..  please hold, i have a request… might  be a while…
I’m back…
We get on the boat a few minute late.  We cruise out to the reed islands.  These are islands made of reeds.  They cut chunks of wee roots and dry them out for the floats.  They said the islands last 20 years.  Newly weds can make a new island and be on their own.  The islands actually undulate was the boats go by.  We are learning all about the people and the islands and the lake.  The guide asks us how deep we think the lake is where the islands are.  I guess 8 meters.  A couple of other people guess.  And guess what, I am right.  I win a really cheap necklace.  Yahoo!!
One couple had some camera troubles so I take some pictures for them and now they have a link to the pictures.  We also me some Irish and some Australians.  Marlo and I go poking around and find the solar cell with bare leads and a dead duck.  We go back to the group.  There is also a guinea pig that we get a picture of.
Then Ruben (our guide, not Julio) asks if we want a reed raft ride, of course we jump on in.  We have a nice little 5 minute ride and start to return to the island.  Well, island man come over and demands 10 sols per person!!!  This was a shock to everyone.  We think that they  funded the island for a month with our payments… I suggested that we all dance with Ruben and charge him 3 sols, but instead I just tell him that was crap.
We are off to Taquile island.  A three-hour-tour. I explain the 50-50 rule to our new friends.  Ruben is nice enough to demonstrate.  There are apparently several ways to get to the top of this island. There are THE 600 stairs.  There is a ramp up and then there are stairs and a ramp down.  We wanted to up the stairs and down the ramp.   Ruben was not being clear.  We finally get it all straightened out.  It seems like ruben was trying to talk us out of the stairs.  They were supposed to be strenuous.  They were not bad at all.  We went across the island on a trail.  It turns out that we stopped in a store and never saw the correct trail again….
More later…