Puno - Titicaca

We arrived in Puno after a 10 hour bus journey, 10 hours is just too long to spend on a bus.We did stop about 4  times to see different sites, such as views over mountains and some historical churches, to be honest my stomach was doing back flips, so all I wanted to do was sleep. We stopped halfway for a buffet lunch, I didn't feel like eating or socialising, so just watched as a couple of Peruvian blokes came out to play some music to us. One was on the drum, notice no plural, and the other one I think was playing the guitar, they were horrendous, they had to have been tone death with no sense of rhythm, a real disaster. It was a little bit embarrassing at the end when they came round with their CD's trying to flog em, we gave them a few sols just to leave us alone. Although I didn't eat anything, well apart from a lovely slice of melon, Lou enjoyed the food, but not as much as this Chinese girl in front of us, they must be starving them over there, I've never seen anyone eat so much. She even took about 6 slices of melon, just before I took my one, I thought she was going to have the lot, fat pig.

The hotel in Puno was a pleasant surprise, we were met by someone from the floating islands tour that we had booked for the next day, called Mary, so she could tell us what was happening the following the day, her English wasn't good enough. I was feeling pretty rank so we got a takeaway pizza of plasticine and chips and went to bed. One thing about Puno at night is that its very noisy, if they aren't having a festival, they are practising for one, and they were actually practising for their biggest one which was due to begin just a few days later.

The following day we were picked up early doors and taken to a boat on Lake Titicaca which was to take us to see the floating islands of Uros. It took about an hour to get there, its amazing how big the lake is, its more like a sea. The floating islands of Uros are basically islands made of reed that loads of people live on rather than live on land, dont know how they do it to be honest, but they all seem happy enough. They have really gone the full hog with their reed town, they've got schools, hospitals, cafe's and even a post office, the only different is you have to get a boat everywhere and no one wears shoes, cuz its always wet. It stinks a bit too. Very interesting stuff. After the floating islands we went to a real island called Taquile, as soon as we arrived we had to go up a very steep hill of steps, which at well over 4000 meters, is hard work. All the way up there were kids selling bits and bobs and trying to see if you would like a picture with them, which would end with you giving them a Sol for the trouble. I started handing out biros to them, as I've heard that they might like this sort of, hard to come by thing. Turns out it went down well, I got myself a couple of little fans, so thanks Mark for that one. On the island of Tequile all the men knit. yep knit. They've been knitting since they were around 4 years old, and by the time they are adults they can knit with five, very fine needles at once, putting any granny in Britain to shame. When they get married they have to knit loads of stuff, including their brides wedding dress, ha can you imagine, 'sorry lads cant come for a pint, need to crack on with me knitting.' Anyway they love it, and i bought a hat which was knitted by a bloke called Simon. When you buy stuff in the shop there, everything has a number on it, from 1 to about 250, you check your number against the chart on the wall, and it tells you which coca chewing knitting man made your item. We had some lunch at the top of the hill and started heading down the other side of the island where the boat was going to pick us up. Now as you know I had a dodgy tummy, following the trout for lunch I needed a number two. They guide told us there were 500 steps for us to go down till we get to the boat, it felt like five thousand. The steps were making things worse and worse, I stopped talking all together,  due to concentration, I resorted to asking the little Spanish children where I could go, the answer was there was a Banos at the bottom of the hill. Skipping down the hill I finally made it, to be greeted by 10 year old girl who wanted 1 Sol for usage, fair enough, sold. What I couldn't believe was that the place had no plumbing, that poor little girl was poised with a bucket of water ready to wash away your business once it was done. I was so embarrassed, as I left I gave her a hand full of money to apologise, and hoped to God that we would never have to cross paths again.

The boat ride back to land was great, I slept for the full 2.5 hours, I do know that it was very sunny and nice, and Lou enjoyed it very much, sitting on the roof of the boat with some Americans and a couple of brits, chatting away about travelling and all the good places in the world, a good day had by all x