The last 2 days we have been on an Island in Lake Titicaca ( lot's of [Water, Reeds, Mountains] ) living with a local family ( Mum, Dad and the [Kids] ); no electrcity, mud hut + horrible food.
Lake Titicaca is famous mainly for being the highest navigable lake in the world ( the Bolivan navy is active on the Bolivian side of the lake ) and it's [Floating Islands] which are made from reeds and really do float !
One of the Attractions of the island is a tortorusly high [Big Hill] which we were forced to climb to the top of to see the wonderful sunset. No sunset is worth 45mins of exhaustion and wondering with every breathe whether it will be your last. You may think I exaggerate but at 4000M above sea level even to tiniest gradient or bit of excercise is far far more exhausting than at sea level.
Anyway once the sun had set it was up to us to get back down the mountain to the house we were staying at. At this point it didn´t seem too important that we had forgotten the name of this family against the advice of our guide. Later this would turn out to be quite annoying.
I was still shaking and staggering from the ascent so was a little behind Paul as he bounded confidently down the hill crying "It´s this way. I am certain". Around this point I made my first fatal error. I followed Paul down the mountain at a slightly slower pace than his exhuberant bounds.
Quite often as I was walking I would be sure that we should be turning down a specific path to the right and would shout this down to Paul. "No, this is way - left !" he would yell and leap down a few more feet over some rocks and stuff. I was beginning to notice that none of the terrain we were now in was familiar from our upward journey. "Paul! I am sure we should head off the right now" I would query. "No, I remember this bit - it´s the field we went from left to right across so now we need to go left across it". "No Paul, this is just a field. There is nothing at all to suggest that it is that field" but Paul was too far ahead by now when I said that.
Eventually we reached an area of impassable canyons and treacherous terracing. In the distance - but rapidly approaching - were the biggest bolts of lightning I have ever seen and the roar of thunder. It was dark and starting to rain. We wandered to and for between the canyons and across the terraces, I often suggested to Paul that since we hadn´t been on anything which could be described as a path for a good while he might like to use his torch.
"Torch!" he would yell, " and ruin my night vision? no fear". Consequently we didnt find a path and just wandered through more hegdes, scaled walls and generally wandered around aimlessly. Then whilst going through someones back yard we met some locals.
Unfortunatley they spoke no English, just a little Spanish. We speak no effective spanish at all. We did manage to understand the question "what is the name of the family you are with?". Whoops. I showed the a picture of the families kids I had taken on my camera and they seemed to agree on a likley candidate. By that time the storm was pretty close and it was raining so they led us back their house and pinned us in a spare bedroom. There followed 40mins of us trying half heartdly to leave, they wouldn´t let us. "Storm too bad", them trying to find out where our house was - didn´t know. We were pretty unsure what to do. They gave us tea, we tried to leave. They wouldn´t let us. After a long drawn out while we managed to say "we need to get to the hall where the [Fiesta !] will be later. Can we go there" except using only 2 of the words in that actual sentance and with a lot of meaningless random ones thrown in. After an even longer period we managed to understand the family to say that they would take us there at 8.
To cut a long story short ( Paul is moaning he wants to go now ) their kid Orlando led us back down some huge well marked paths we had obviously missed despite being only 2yards from them. Strangley in Orlandos torch beam they were perfectly obvious. Half the island had been disturbed looking for us. What fun.
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