Monday 30 September - Thursday 3 October

Lake Titicaca, Peru & Bolivia

Our night bus made good time and arrived early in Puno around 4am, which meant we had to wait in the cold bus station until sunrise before our 'free' shuttle came to fetch us from the Lucky Your House hostel. Upon arrival we were made to pay five Soles for the 'free' shuttle and when we didn't have anything smaller than a tenner, the driver made off with all of it before we knew what had happened. Gringoed again! Puno is on the banks of Lake Titicaca in Peru and is not the kind of place you want to hang around for too long, as it could do with a bit of a spruce up, but we were there to visit the floating islands of Uros and we needed to organise a visa for Bolivia with the embassy there before we could move on.

The lake sits 3800masl so its pretty fresh here all year round. We took a short boat ride to visit the local Uros people who build floating islands out of reeds that grow in the lake and make their living from fishing and handicrafts which they sell to tourists and barter for food from the people in Puno. We also took a ride on one of the large reed boats that they make for tourists which they have to row from island to island - well the wind and the current was so strong, that the two rowers went totally off course and they had to enlist the help of a young girl in a motor boat to help push the reed boat back to the island where we were meeting our first boat to head back to Puno - only half an hour late. A common occurrence I imagine.
Each island has a leader who runs it and organises the tasks, food and handicrafts, while most of the men are out fishing during the day. Each family unit sleeps in a single room house where they all huddle together in one bed for warmth as there is no electricity here for heating and no fires in the houses for obvious reasons. The children all attend their primary school on the floating islands and the older ones go to Puno for secondary schooling. When the reeds on the top layer of the island start to dry out, they simply lay a fresh layer on top...this obviously makes the island heavier with each layer and eventually over the years they will sink - then its time to build a new island. When they have big parties for weddings, they simply tie up a few of the neighbours islands to themselves to accommodate all the extra guests and untie them when the festivities are over. You even have the freedom of moving your island to a new location if you're having issues with your neighbours. How convenient!

Gary had been wanting to try guinea pig (on Matt's recommendation) since we got to Peru, so before leaving we thought we had better sample the local 'cuy' which was a little cheaper in Puno than we had seen in Cusco. Gary ordered his cuy and not feeling adventurous that day, I settled on a pizza. When the cuy landed on the table it looked like a deep fried chicken and tasted just like one too. There wasn't much meat as you can imagine, so a bit disappointing, but you've gotta try everything once - twice if you like it, though I'm sure it was just a bum restaurant. We managed to obtain our visas for Bolivia two days later after submitting a few documents, photos and not having to pay a cent. Bonus. So off we headed to Copacabana which is cute little hippy town on the banks of Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian side.

In Copacabana we came across our very first other Saffas in the whole five months we'd been travelling. Gosh it was weird to hear that accent in this tiny town in Bolivia - it made us both a little homesick. We took the afternoon ferry to Isla del Sol, which looked really close, but since the ferry was plodding along on a 50cc motor, it took an eon to get there, leaving us only an hour to explore before we had to catch the last ferry back. Since we didn't have a map and weren't sure where we could hike to for the last ferry, we had to take a guided tour with the worst guide we've encountered on our travels so far. The walk across the Isla del Sol to the Temple of the Sun was beautiful, and we only wished we'd gotten there earlier in the day so we could've spent the whole day hiking our own route from the north to the south of the island sans the useless guide. Lesson learnt. Back in Copacabana we warmed ourselves up with strong rum coffees due to the freezing slow ferry ride back where we had to sit on the roof in the cold wind as all the seats below were taken, and just in time to catch the last bright orange sunlight disappear into the lake.
Before we left Copacabana we purchased some beautiful brightly coloured material which the ladies use to carry their babies or belongings around in Bolivia, which I hope my mom will help me make into cushions when I see her in December.