Homestay.

Whilst in Puno we thought it would be pretty cool to do a homestay with a local family on one of the lakes many islands. We wanted to see a slice of real Peru which is always pretty difficult in the towns near different tourist attractions as they're so geared up for the tourism droves of backpackers bring to the area.

To start with the tour seemed a bit like it may also just the same, a money making idea, as the boat takes you off to the floating islands, the lakes main novelty, that are all made entirely out of straw, as are the houses, boats and pretty much everything you set your eyes on. It was pretty cool to see and as one of the women showed us the inside of their home I got excited that it may be similar to what we would later be staying in.

How wrong I was. We turned up to a beautiful, and solid, island for our homestay, where the fastest form of transport is by donkey and roads don't exist. I have to say I was a little disappointed that there were no reed houses in sight. I was quite looking forward to roughing it and doing something a bit different.

We sprung on the locals by suprise a bit. As usual with Peru nothing was really organised and it appeared that it hadn't actually been communicated to the families that our band of tourists were going to show up.

So much so, in fact, that the parents of the family that Hannah and I were meant to be staying with had gone over to the mainland for a few days leaving only their 11 year old daughter behind who ended up playing hostess with the aid of her grandparents nextdoor.

Betsy did a great job to be fair, she cooked our meals and made conversation where she could. The whole homestay thing felt a bit weird, we were treated like guests, given our own immaculate bedrooms and generally spoilt. Not really entering into family life in the way that I had hoped and expected to.

The highlight of the time on the island was that we were able to dress up in the traditional Peruvian clothing and attend their local 'discotec' as they call it, which, consisted of some locals playing pan pipes and the guitar while the men sat solemly observing the events at the side of the room and the women swishing their skirts, dancing traditionally with the guests.

It was great to enter into the community for  a small period during that evening, and don't worry, there will be photographic evidence of our Perah Chic as we decided to name the style.

The second day we also found ourselves climbing yet more mountains! After our Inca training we were hardcore and led the way to the top, and back down to the bottom. It was nice to have the chance to climb, whilst still looking around, not being concerned about tripping at every step as you do on the Inca trail. The view from the tops of these mountains was great as it allowed you to real see the scale of Lake Titicaca. Its enormous! It took three hours in the boat to get to our homestay island. To  get to the Bolivian side must take days!

We stayed on Amantani and visited Taquille, so you can see to get to Copacabana must be a pretty long boat ride - aparently its possible in a day, but I'm not sure that I believe that.