We were able to pick up the Bolivia Hop bus as it made its way from Cusco to La Paz. While Copacabana (our next destination) isn't far from Puno, this was very useful for assistance in crossing the border which we had read a few bad experience stories about. Fortunately our crossing was completely painless. So we were leaving Peru. This is a country that has an extremely high concentration of both Incan and Pre-Incan ruins which they have done a really good job ...

We had booked an overnight tour to see a few islands on Lake Titicaca. We were taken to the jetty where we discovered our tour was quite popular, there was about 30 people crowded into the small boat. Our first stop was one of the Floating Uros Islands. These Islands are made from the reeds that grow in the lake. The Uro people, a Pre-Incan tribe, made their way into the lake to escape enemy tribes and hid amongst the reeds. They build their islands by placing p...

To get to Puno we were able to take a Peru Hop bus bound for Cusco to a town called Juliaca. From there we clamoured into a moto taxi then a crowded public bus for the hour trip to Puno. After checking into our hostel we made our way to the main square and found a spot for lunch and had an easy afternoon. The next day we set about seeing what Puno had to offer. Close to the hostel was a little lookout spot that also seemed a popular place for some locals to drin...

Back in Arequipa we decided to do the free walking tour that we had missed a few days earlier. It didn't start until the afternoon so we spent the morning enquiring with tour agencies about doing some mountain biking, either down El Misti or Chachani Volcano. Unfortunately we found this activity was a little out of our price range, and it was difficult to know who to believe as one agency would tell us one mountain was great and the other not so great, and the ne...

The Colca Canyon, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, lies only a few hours from Arequipa. At its beginning it's about 1,200m deep, but apparently reaches over 4,000m deep! Ideally we would have preferred to do a hiking tour of the Canyon, but we had an overnight bus tour included with our Peru Hop ticket with a local tour company so we took that option. They collected us bright and early and we hit the road, receiving some commentary about the White City as we d...