3 days was certainly enough in La Paz. It is a very interesting and different city, but it was nice to escape the constant beeping horns, the collectives hurtling down the streets and the endless markets selling alpaca (both as clothes and as mummified remains - apparently it´s good luck.) We were ready for something different and were very pleased that Copacabana, our next stop, was the exact opposite to La Paz.

Copacabana is a small town 3 hours away from La Paz on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Before you ask, it´s not the same as the Barry Manilow song, however that didn´t stop me from listening to the song on my music player! To get to Copacabana we took a local bus (i.e. small, crowded, bumpy and no toilet!) to one part of the lake, then took a boat across the lake while our bus took a separate boat, and then continued on our journey for another half hour. The town is really nice. There are lots of nice restaurants with superb food. We found a place on the first night that was perhaps 1 minute walk from the shore. We both had the trout and it was amazing, perfectly cooked and very cheap. The hostel, Ecolodge Copacabana is about 15 minutes walk along the shore and was perfect. The surroundings are idyllic with little lodges on a hill, flowers, locals tending the crops in the gardens and several dogs. We just did the one organisedtrip in Copacabana and that was to visit the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun). The island was a 2 hour boat trip away from the town and has a number of Inca ruins. The idea is you get to the north part of the island at around11 o´clock in the morning then walk the length of the island looking at the ruins, the boat then picks you up at 3.15pm from the south of the island. There were several uphill bits, but the walk was really nice. It was also at altitude so it was good practice for the Inca trail. You don´t get much time to dawdle on the walk so we had lunch on the move. We got to the harbor in the south with about half an hour to spare. It was a very nice day.

The following day we decided to visit a local village which was supposed to be about 15 minutes walk from the hostel. We set out walking along the shore and after an hour of walking still hadn´t found the village. As it was clear we had gone the wrong way, we decided to turn back. On the way back we were joined by a dog which seemed to be ownerless, and was happy for some attention. We were about 5 minutes away from the hostel when we heard a whining noise coming from the water´s edge. We stopped and looked around and saw a black dog by the water. It seemed in trouble. It tried to get up on it´s front legs, but fell. The brown dog that had joined us went over to investigate, sniffed around the black dog and lay down beside it. We went over and saw that the black dog was clearly in trouble - it´s back legs looked broken. There was nothing we could do though, we were worried that approaching it might result in us getting bitten. We walked away with the brown dog in tow and the injured black dog started whining again. We were surprised that there was a group of locals nearby that were within earshot of the whining, but did nothing. When we got back to the hostel we told the hostel owner about the dog. Apparently he had been caring for the dog; however it had gone missing 3 days earlier. We immediately got in his car and he rescued the dog from the shore. He then told us that it seemed as though someone had intentionally broken the dog´s legs. He also told us that the mayor of the town intends to have all the dogs in Copacabana put down and that he was very much against this (in fact he had had an argument with the mayor a week earlier.) He said that he would care for the black dog and try and nurse him back to health, although it would take months. If his back legs don´t heal, he said he would maybe make him some wheels. We were so happy that the black dog was now in safe hands. The brown dog also seemed to make his home at the lodge. The hostel owner invited us to join his Facebook page so we could see updates of how the black dog was getting on. Hopefully he will make a full recovery.

After a few days in Copacabana we left to cross the border into Peru to stay in a town called Puno. Puno is also on the shore of Lake Titicaca but is nowhere near as pretty as Copacabana. The town seems a bit unfinished; every building seemed to have more floors being built onto it. Most of the town was very residential and busy. There is one main pedestrianised road which has lots of restaurants and touristy shops on it. There was not a great deal to see in Puno. There was lots of campaigning going on for a general election, so there were lots of parades and big groups of people all trying to get support for their candidates. Some of the campaigns are down right weird - one in particular has people dressed as hamsters. I don´t know why that would make you vote for someone, but they seemed to like it. It was good to see everyone getting so into the election. There are 5 main candidates and from what I can tell, it´s a pretty open race. Everyone has to vote here, so there´s lots of excitement.

The only reason to stay in Puno is to visit the Uros Floating Islands. I do not understand these but will try and explain as best I can. About half an hour from Puno, in the middle of Lake Titicaca there are 50 floating islands. The islands are made of reeds. People live on the islands. There are houses, shops, restaurants and even a hotel built out of reeds on an island on reeds. There are reed boats. People eat the inside of the reeds. We got an explanation of how the islands are made, how they are anchored and how they can be moved - I didn´t understand it though. The guide showed us that the depth of the lake is 15 meters and the depth of the island is 2 meters. The residents have to keep piling on the reeds to keep it afloat. I don´t understand why the reeds don´t all float away or why they don´t sink. The story behind these islands is that the residents are all part of the same tribe. They lived on land hundreds of years ago. The Incas started invading and taking over all the tribes in the area, so this tribe built the reed islands to get away from the Incas. It was all very interesting, even though as I said, I didn´t understand it. The main way they make money these days is through tourism, so after our lesson on the island we were taken by the residents to their homes to dress up and to buy their wares. We were guilt tripped into buying a couple of things; however the souvenirs we bought were very nice. We then got guilt tripped into riding on the reed boat which went about 20 meters from the island and just stayed there until we were ready to go back. On the boat were 2 little children who sang that Alouetta French song. They then asked for money. They train them from an early age it seems! It was good to see the islands - we´ve certainly never seen anything like them before. I don´t know how genuine it all is though. Rumour has it that the residents of the islands don´t actually live on them anymore and just go there for the tourists. Whether that is true or not I don´t know for sure. The reed huts had solar panels and televisions. I´m not saying that they shouldn´t have electricity or modern amenities, but I don´t think that what we saw was the original way of life, more a tourist attraction. Perhaps I´m just being cynical!

From Puno we got a direct bus to Cusco which took 7 hours.The bus was incredibly nice compared to the journeys we had had in Bolivia!The scenery was pretty amazing too, the nicest I think we have had on a bus journey.It was all mountains and pretty little villages, and lots of trees and grass - which was welcome to see after the desert landscape of Bolivia.The hostel we had booked for Cusco turned out to be very nice, it was set in a big old house and had no dorms (but still as cheap as dorm rooms).The owners were also incredibly welcoming and helpful.The city itself is a lot nicer than we expected, particularly the main area around the square (Plaza de Armas) is very pretty.There are beautiful buildings around this plaza and there are some very narrow, cobblestone streets going off the square.The only trouble with this area is the constant hawking for tourists to buy jumpers, jewellery, scarves, massages, sunglasses, paintings, or to look at info for tours and to look at menus for restaurants.We have spent a few days just looking around the city, and we have been to two museums - the Inca Museum and the Chocolate Museum ;o).The Inca museum was interesting to learn all about the history of the area.There were lots of pictures and models of the different Inca ruins in the Sacred Valley, which is near Cusco, one ruin looked pretty cool (apart from Macchu Picchu of course) - so we have booked a day tour to go and see this, its called Maras Moray.The ChocoMuseo turned out to be a very new place, its only been open and month and a half, it was free to enter and had all the history and info about the discovery and consumption of cocoa/chocolate and how it has developed up until now.We then had delicious hot chocolates in their café ;o).We saw that they did a chocolate workshop where you get to make your own chocolate from scratch (grinding up the beans etc) - so we booked this!We just did this workshop yesterday, and picked up the chocolates we made today.The workshop started off with a lot of theory about the actual Cacao tree and how the beans are harvested and fermented etc.We then got to try a bean that hadn´t been roasted yet - apparently, eaten like this, it is a superfood because it is very nutritious - it didn´t taste much like chocolate at this point though.We then got to roast some beans, and eat one again to see how the flavor had changed.Then we ground some up with a mortar and pestle, and this gritty mush was used to make a drink that the Mayans used to drink - hot water and chilli powder was added - the drink was pretty gross!Then we made a hot chocolate drink that we have today, with milk, and the beans were ground up properly in a machine and sugar added - much nicer!Then we got to make our own chocolates with a range of other ingredients that we wanted to add (like nuts, coconut or raisins etc).We´ve got a couple of days now until our Maras Moray tour, then a few days after that we´ll be starting the Inca Trail!The Peru election is this Sunday (tomorrow) so it will probably be pretty mad here!

D and S