31.08.07 - Arrived in Puno (city on the edge of Lake
Titicaca) after a 6 hour bus journey from Cuzco.
Picked up by tour guide and taken to what can only be
described as his house and told his wife will look
after us (thought we were meant to be staying in a
hostel but for 3 quid a night we´re not complaining!)

The following day we set off on our 2 day excursion on
Lake Titicaca!! Rudely awoken by our ´host´, and told
to get up in time for breakfast, (we wouldn´t have
minded if we were being fed a full English, but as
´breakfast´ turned out to be the usual bread roll, jam
and tea or coffee with no milk, we shouldn't have
bothered!)

So by 7am we had boarded our boat along with 20 other
gringos (tourists/travellers) and set off to the Uros
Islands. These are a group of islands not far from the
harbor in Puno that are made entirely of reed and are
known as the floating islands. We have never seen
anything like them, and apparently there is nothing
like them anywhere else in the world. There are still
several hundred people living on then in huts made of
reed and get from island to island on boats made of
reed. Their existence began hundreds of years ago in
an attempt to get away from the incas and isolate
themselves in their own floating communities
(check us out knowing our history of the Úros
people!!)

As you can see in the pictures its absolutely crazy,
everything these people own is made from reed (and
Kate did try start a conspiracy theory that the people
don't really live there but are all actors who live on
the main land and just go there in their fancy dress
when they know tourists are coming)

We then had an interesting ride to another reed island on a boat (you guessed it) made out of reed and powered by a large Uros woman. The second island we visited was meant to be the capital of all the floating islands....but the only additions to this island was a few more reed huts, a couple of souvenir shops, places yuo could stay and very oddly they somehow had a working telephone box, as our guide told us so they could call for assisstance in an emergency!!

After another three hours on the boat we arrived at
Amantani Island where we would spend the night
(luckily it is a proper island and not a floating
one!) As we got off the boat we were all paired off
with a local family who would be looking after us for
the night, our family member was called Flora and she
led us up to her mud-brick home (with no electricity,
outdoor toilet and no shower!!) we had a bull and
calf, two dozen sheep, two cockrels a hen and a dog in
our familys garden…it was more like a farm!

This island has 8 small communities living there with the total population being 3,000...and there are no roads, no cars, no phones, no electricity, no hot water....some of the richer families own solar panels so they can have a light on now and again as a treat, but otherwise they go to bed when it gets dark and are all up and about at the first light of sun!

Another small issue was that although our Spanish
isn't great we have been getting by so far with the
little that we have picked up, but the people who live
here speak Quechua! So they dont speak english, we dont know a word of quechua, so we basically communicated through pointing and guessing!!

On Amantani we dined with our family, walked up the
highest mountain on the island with the rest of the
group, and then got dressed up in local attire which
consisted of a poncho and hat for Ed (not bad) and a
skirt, corset style belt around ribs, blouse and head
dress veil thingy for Kate (not so good) We were taken
to the village square - in the pitch black as there are no
street lights - where a Fiesta was held for all our
tour group (also dressed up) and family members, in a
hall which had electricity so we could see each other
and sold beer. Four young boys played music and our
family members made us get up and dance with them…as
you can see from the pictures was all very strange,
but loads of fun! Few beers and home to our bed for
the night - little mud hut, that smelt like a
farmyard!!

The island was kinda like all the other places we´ve
been to in Peru so far, its hot when the suns out
during the day (and Lake Titicaca is hotter than
anywhere we´ve been so far coz its SO high up at 3820m
) but as soon as the sun goes down it is bloody
freezing!!

Next morning up, fed brekky by our family, and back on the boat to
another island, where we trekked up and over another
mountain, had dinner, and then continued our journey
back to Puno.

Next destination Arequipa, on the trail south towards Chile.........

Until then, love and hugs xx