Closer to the sky, another life

Bus ride for 7 hours. Breathing became just a little bit more difficult than yesterday. But still no real problem. I will survive for sure. Landed at sunset in the middle of the city. Puno is quite ugly and dirty. I have a weird feeling, it's doesn't really feel like home, not like Cusco. Oh well, let's see what happens.





I woke up in the middle of the mountains, the amazing Andes mountains, at the altitude of 3800 m...sailing on a small boat, to a paradise island. I never imagined that mountain (3800 m) and sailing could go together. It seems lake Titicaca makes it happen everyday.
We first visited the floating islands, made by hand by the local communities (Peruvians-ancestors from the Pre-Inca civilization) who ran on the water long years ago, to protect themselves from the Inca civilization that came to take over the lands. The families on the islands are living an extremely simple life, using their boats everyday to bring supplies from the mainland. They mainly live from tourism fishing and handcrafting.

Moving a little bit further from the mainland, around 2.5 hrs by boat, is the beautiful Taquile island, a natural island serving a community of 2900 people. A community that lives by its own rules, quite different than ours. Besides the fact that they don't pay any taxes or utilities, they have an own government which they elect every year by raising their hand in the main square. They grow their own food, eat tones of fish and rice, use solar electricity for cooking, but still have a few schools and a doctor from the mainland during the week (hopefully nobody gets ill in weekends)  Their main sources are tourism (you pay 3 USD to get on the island) handcraft and the traditional fishing thanks to the lake.

It's funny to call it lake cause this huge pile or water looks like a sea, a sea at 3800 m above...sea level :)))
After one full day in such a place, after visiting such a different kind of lifestyle, it kind of makes you want to go back to your roots, life can be so beautiful without many useless shit we have everyday.

Post written on 26 May 2013 at 15.30 Peru time, 23.30 Romania time.

Mauritius island and the Seven coloured earth

This was for sure one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited in a vacation, but it's definitely after taj mahal on the worldwide atraction list :P Since we stayed in the south of the island, it was quite easy to reach this place, just hopped in a public bus and in one hour we were in the small village of Chamarel, from where we took a not so cheap taxi till up the hill where the Seven coloured earth park is. On the way to the coloured sands we were delighted by the extremely green and wild nature, waterfalls all the ways, climbind up and down on the hill, between rocks and palm trees, just enought walk to make you tired so that when you reach to see the sands, you will feel as free as them and enjoy it to the max. Aparently the composition from the soil is giving the coloures, which is iron and aluminium, from red colours, brown, violet, green, blue, purple to yellow, and even doe the heavy tropical rains from the island, they don't wash away, mix, dissapear...since more than 1960. Now the bad part about this small trip was the weather. Do not let yourselves fooled by the island weathers, cause if there is no sun, just appearing from time to time between the clouds, that does not mean that you won't get tanned...or burned....like I did :D Wear scarfs or cover you neck if having a loose t-shirt and even your nose and forehead if possible. My experience, a cruel neck, forehead and nose burnt...which still shows off after 1 week :| On the way back from the beautiful colours, next stop was Rochester water falls, a hidden place in the middle of the sugar cane plantations, where on the way we found some lovely south african people about which I'm gonna tell you soon.

Mauritius island...planning and impressions

No, no no no no. Definitely not what you see on google images is the right way to express the beauty of this island. That is luxury bulshit that lazy toursist do when getting there, book a 2000 euro hotel and go on yachts every day, playing golf, laying like turtles in the sun...when you can actually go and ride them...the turtles I mean :))
And to clear some first things, the island partains to Africa, even doe it is highly habited by...indians. Apparently with all the invadors during time, in order to populate the island and make money out of it, indian labour was brought from overseas, or should I say overoceans, to work the fields out and export whatever possible to export from there, tea, sugar cane etc. And even if the last invadors leaving a print on the place were british, not everyone speaks english, but for sure everyone speaks french, which was kind of a first for me...to hear indians of all sizes and ages speaking french...


So coming back to vacation types, yes when deciding to spend your vacation on this island, you of course have the option to book an expensive hotel with everything included or not (anyhow it will be expensive) and have all activities within that place, or you have the second option, our option, to book a cheap hostel or hotel in which you will spend time only to sleep and the rest of the day explore the island by bus/foot/car (foot is not really a good decision cause it's quite a big island even if you can barely see it on the world map, but who knows...) And that is exactly what me and my friend did, a cheap but good looking hotel with 22 euros per night per person and travel around the island by bus (again the cheap way to travel in Mauritius, in the condition when the taxi would charge you 10 times more than the public transportation) Of course if you have an international driving license and not afraid of well known crazy indian traffic, rent a car. Problem solved!
Weather? No worries you can find umbrellas and rain coats every corner...cause you would need it. Never in my life even seen so much rain and never ever walked so much in rain. But even weirder than that, one moment it was raining, another moment sun was coming out, in the south of the island it was raining cats and dogs, in the west part it was sunny like hell....For a few moments I found myself in the Bermude Triangle not Indian Ocean :P :))


Mauritius is by far the most beautiful place I'vee seen, a perfect combination of mountains and ocean, all covered in green, could barely see a piece of soil, giving a unique feeling that you are on a piece of land that just pumped out of the ocean one day long ago. We visited quite a few of the natural parks, crocodile park, botanical garden in pout louis (capital city), waterfalls, of course by bus and walking, either on hills and mountains, either in the sugar cane, some good kilometers but surely worth the effort.
My favorite place of them all?
Soon to come the story of the 7 colours of Earth natural park.