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Published: December 19th 2009
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Jess, me, Leanne, Ben and Tanya leaving Arequipa. Note the bus destination chalked in the window! I travelled to Puno on the shore of Lago Titicaca with the three Welsh girls I met in Arequipa, Jess, Leanne and Rhian, and an English guy called Ben. We stayed at The Point hostel. After arriving we went straight into town as we only had two days to see the city and the lake. We visited the Cathedral, very similar to most of the others I have seen in Peru - very big and very ornate. We saw a baptism taking place, I am not sure we were meant to be in there! We then went for food and found an excellent restaurant which offered us the set menu for 15 soles each with a free drink, and I think we all chose Lomo Saltado, which is an excellent local dish with spicy meat, rice and chips which I have eaten a heck of a lot of!
The next day we all took the half day trip out to the Uros floating islands which were absolutely stunning. We went out by boat for about 45 minutes and then landed on one of the 40 floating islands, where we were asked to take a seat and were given a presentation
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Puno Cathedral overlooking the Plaza de Armas from the islanders about how they make and maintain the island. Each island is made completely of reeds, as are all the houses, decorations, pretty much everything! I ended up buying a really nice wall hanging from one of the islanders which I have no room for in my rucksack but its worth lugging it around in my hand luggage anyway as its so nice.
The islanders performed a traditional dance, and then also did a song in English for us. The words were indecipherable, which was quite funny. The ladies then took the girls out from the group and took us into their tiny little houses where we were dressed in their clothes which are really colourful. The local women laughed at us a lot as we didn´t really have the same wide girth as them!
On returning to Puno I realised that although it wasn´t hot (as we were at high altitude) the sun had been strong and I had sunburnt quite a bit - oops!
For our evening meal we returned to the same restaurant and this time I had alpaca steak, which is so much better than beef. I really can´t understand why
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Enjoying Lomo Saltado and alpaca steaks in our 15 soles 3-course restaurant we don´t eat alpacas at home - Jim always said they were useless animals so maybe that could solve the problem...?
Later the girls returned to the hostel as they were tired, but the Ben (English) and Sam (Kiwi) and I went to find a cheese market we had heard about. We didn´t find any cheese but we did find a rock and reggae bar that let us choose the music, and we met a local guy who sat with us and drank all our beer. We then went back to our little restaurant to see a local band that were playing there and they were really very good. It ended up being a rather late night but as we were making the 9 hour bus journey to Cusco the next day there was plenty of time to catch up on sleep!
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