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Published: November 24th 2007
Floating Islands
Uros Islands - Puno14/11-15/11/07
From Cuzco we headed down to Puno (3827m asl), a small town on the side of Lake Titicaca where we originally stopped there to arrange crossing the Bolivian border the next day but ended up heading out to one the most fascinating sights I´ve ever seen. The floating islands of Lake Titicaca. With only a morning to see them, we opted for a short 2-3 hour tour run by a local boat captain who took us out to Uros Islands where we visited a couple of different settlements. The islands are made up of water reeds, as are the houses, beds, boats.... pretty much everything. Stepping on to one for the first time is quite weird. Sort of like walking on a bed of straw in a horse stable. Very cool though. The locals rely heavily on tourism these days but still maintain a traditional way of life with there own fishing pond which I gather they fish for and release into the pond until ready to be eaten (I could be wrong, our Captain spoke no Ingles!). Definitely worth the morning excursion.
Puno itself is quite a busy little metropolis where we found a great bakery Rico
Pan which serves the best of everything (including lovalee normal coffee!) and stayed at Don Tito Hotel. We also bumped into a couple of travellers Jess and Juliette from our Inca Trail which is always a nice surprise but then again not surprising on the gringo trail.
From Puno, we were bound for the Bolivian border which went without a hitch. Quite surprised considering all the stories you hear of guards demanding bribes as a means of entry. The only hitch was some of the travellers on our bus took their time at immigration and the bus left them behind (only an 8km walk to Copa!). From there, we met a couple of others on the bus, Robin from Auz and Keith from UK where we headed to Copacabana together.
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