Hola After another freezing night, but this time with another blanket on top (making 5), we woke up and had a very measly breakfast americana, one solitary fried egg and some bread. We then hopped in a minibus with some other gringoes to go down to the harbour at lake Titikaka. There we caught a boat to thefloating islandsof Uros, this was definitely the hightlight of this place. There are about 45 floating islands, hundreds of years old, they are based on the roots of a special kind of reed, then the people place around two metres of cut reed on top, adding layers every few weeks as the bottom ones rot away. We got offthe boatandwalked around on the largest island, they have built houses, hospitals, schools, evrything on them. They are very bizarre to walk on, bit like a waterbed but you feel secure. We had a very good multilingual guide who gave us a good history and also showed us the depth by shoving a stick through the island and down into the water. The islanders rejected the inca and spanish invasions and have mainained their traditional ways, living on fishing, tourism(they sell cloths, pots etc) and swap fish on the mainland for other supplies such as potatoes and rice. They also catch birds with rifles. Originally they lived completely from the reeds, eating them, building boats(which they lived on originally) and later they tied the boats together and slowly evolved into islands. Bizarley enough they were all donated solar panels by some Japanese guy who they all still remember, so they have TV, phoneboxes(reed). Unfortunately the poulation is diminishing as they have no secondary schools, the young people go to Puno to school and tend to stay and get jobs, so there are older people and little kids only. After a great introduction to live on the islands by our guide, we wandered around then caught a very elaborate reed boat to another island. Here they had converted their reed roofs to corregated iron ones!. We had another stroll about then returned to the mainland. sadly this will haveto try to stay in our minds as we couldnt take any pics, we'll try to find some that we can steal from someone else. We're really glad we went there today, its a lovely place and very interesting. We're off to Cusco in an hour, another 6hr bus ride 'royal class' thank god, nice and comfy and great views from up top. Its wierd its our last place but we're not even half way into our peru bit yet, jungle sunday then inka trail 15th....loads to come! Take Care Claire & Ian