Puno and the Floating Islands

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Following Machu Picchu we headed to Puno to see Lake Titicaca (that name still makes me snigger!) to see the floating Islands and spends a night on Isla Taquile. Puno is a bit of a dump but we stayed a fab hostel and the couple that owned it were like our parents for a couple of days! We took an overnight tour which started off at Uros one of the floating islands. They are pretty cool but sadly a massive tourist trap and even though we had paid for a tour got conned into an untold amount of extras including buying a cushion cover! always helpful when travelling the world!

We then landed on Amatatiki Island where we were intoduced to our host Rosa. Really nice lady but not speaking much Spanish proved to be a bit of a hindrence and resulted in very stilted convo. Luckily she had a very cute kid (Lucy) who provided much entertainment and helped to break the ice. We had dinner which was interesting as we were told to wait in our room for an hour and then were called to the kitchen to eat in the dark on our own....we thought the idea of a hoomestay was to eat with the family but hey ho!

The evening was possibly the most bizzare evening we have ever had. We were taken to a ´fiesta´ where we had to dress up in local clothes (check out the pics...we looked ridiculous!) and was soley for the tourists benefit. We the first to arrive and Rosa told us to go into this hall which was pitch black with noone in it apart from a few islanders twanging some sort of banjo item (amy you would have loved it!). We werent really sure what we were supposed to do so sat there for a while and thankfully other tourists started to arrive. The evening resulted in us being pulled in a circle around a very smokey fire to very out of tune music (still in local dress). By the end of it we were so dizzy and smoked out we were relieved to get back to the house! The entire thing was bizarre from start to finish but funny looking back on it!

The next day after saying bye to Rosa and Lucy we got back on our boat to sail to the next island which was really pretty. We had look round and then had lunch before getting back on the boat for a 3hr return trip. The lake is so beautiful and is so vast it looks like the sea so the journey was really nice!

After returning to our hostel for a final night we got the bus yesterday across the border and we are now in Copacabana in Bolivia.....

It is such a laid back village right on the lake and is much less hassle than Puno, so we have decided to stay put until Monday! Update to follow soon.....

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